"PACKING WATER FROM BUSH TUNNEL.

dren, and the house that knew him knows him no more. Another assortment of family garments flaps on the clothes-lines; another brood of chickens and children throngs his door-step.

During the long months when drought sits heavy on the land, the water-tank is one of the idyls of the Cornish Camp. It is a sort of club at which congregate all the stray dogs, donkeys, sad-eyed cows (who subsist, at this season, chiefly on hope deferred), boys with water-pails, red-shirted teamsters, and "wood-packers" with trains of jaded mules; there is nothing dubious in the nature of its benefits, and of all who gather there none depart in bitterness, unless it may be the small Cornish lads, who carry away two heavy pails and a sense of injury natural to the spirit of youth under such

circumstances. Three times a day the motley crowd gathers, but I like it best at sunset, with a flushed sky overhead, against which the figures are dark; gleams of trickling water; the straw hat of a teamster, or a gaunt gray donkey, catching the waning light; while evening shadows brood already in the hollows of the mountains and deepen the mystery of the cañon beyond.

The Mexican camp has little of that bustling energy which belongs to its neighbor on the floor below. It wakes up slowly in the morning,-especially if the morning be cold, and lounges abroad on moonlight nights, when guitar-tinklings sound from the shadowy vine-flecked porches. The barest little cabin has its porch, its climbing vines and shelf of carefully tended plants. Dark-eyed women sit on the doorsteps in the sun braiding a child's hair, perhaps, or chattering to a neighbor, who leans against the door-post with a baby half hidden in the folds of her shawl. They walk up and down the hilly street, letting their gowns trail in the dust, their heads enveloped in a shawl, one end of which is turned up over the shoulder; the smooth, sliding step corresponds with the accent in speaking. In passing, they look at you with a slow, grave stare like that of a child. All, even to the babies, have an air of repose; crudeness of voice or manner is almost unknown among them.

The first time I went down into the mine one of the men of the party, as is the custom, passed a bottle of whisky among the men in each "labór" we visited. The Cornish men drank in a hearty, unconstrained fashion enough, but each Mexican, before raising the bottle to his lips, turned to the two women of the party with a grave inclination and a Buena salud, Señoras!

In practical dealings with them one is constantly baffled by the softly spoken phrase, "No possible, Señora !" There is one, Vesequio,-a dark, short, fat-visaged

person, not without guile, I fear, who gives lessons on the guitar,* attends all the miners' auctions, and keeps for sale, in his dingy little shop, a curious collection of furniture, new and old. In a moment of weakness we bought a chair of Vesequio. It had certain merits (cheapness, probably, was one of them) which induced us to overlook the fact of its being slightly out of repair. Vesequio promised to mend itthe work of an hour or two-and bring it the next day. It did not come, of coursehe hadn't the tools; he would send it the very next day to his neighbor the carpentero; then the carpentero went to town, when he returned it should be mended at once. After I had given up all hope of ever seeing it in the house, Vesequio came down the trail one day, dressed in his best clothes, followed by his man Friday, a blear-eyed, idiotic-looking Mexican, whose life is, I fear, anything but an upward striv

ing of the spirit. Man Friday carried the chair; Vesequio thus had both hands free to assist him in a series of graceful salutations as Lizzie ushered him into the room. If I had been equal to the part of Imperial Highness it would have greatly resembled the introduction of an embassador bearing gifts from one potentate to another. If you could have seen the gesture with which Vesequio spread out both hands-and if you could have seen the hands!

We found at Vesequio's an old brown jar, broken slightly on the lip, but such a delightful old heathen! He looks as if he had crawled out of a tomb ages old. The color is dull reddish-brown, it is big and clumsy in shape, and looks as if it held old secrets of the flesh. We asked Vesequio if he could get us any smaller ones. His face took a sudden gleam of half-concealed and crafty satisfaction, and he said softly, as if to himself, "Possible!" but both Vesequio and we were disappointed. Not another could be found in the camp. It would have been great fun, the bargain with Vesequio. He saw we were anxious to have it, and how he would have enjoyed the elaborate details of the final settlement. I don't care how long the bargaining lasts. It is so amusing to follow the inflections of Vesequio's fat voice,

Theophila will ever be like the curiously wrinkled or fat and shapeless señoras I have seen standing in their door-ways, one hand propping the arm which raises a cigarette to the lips while they gaze languidly down the sunny street.

One sees very few old people among the Mexicans; they are a feeble race, and seldom last into the seventies; but when you do meet one who has shuffled into that "last scene of all," he takes the part so

OLD MEXICAN WOMAN.

well, you feel that you have never seen an old man before.

Climbing the steepest part of the main street of the Mexican camp, I met one morning a procession of two-a small,

swarthy boy, and a donkey with a very big head. I don't know whether a donkey's obstinacy increases with the size of his head, but the small boy's figure slanted at a sharp angle with the hill, he was as far in advance of the donkey as the length of his rope would permit, and the rope was very "taut." The donkey carried on his back a kind of wooden frame, used to hold waterbuckets, one suspended on each side, but loaded instead with pots of blossoming plants,-flaming scarlet geraniums, a tall calla-lily, and a thorny monster of a cactus, beloved by the Mexicans. As the donkey sulkily planted one foot before another, all this gay company nodded and shook in the sunlight, and seemed to wave greetings to their stay-at-home neighbors in the road-side porches.

On our walk we once met some bare-legged, bare-headed Mexican lads racing their donkeys over the hills, looking themselves like wild young colts of a dark and stubbed breed. One of them-such is the happy instinct of these people-wore a pink cotton shirt; had the tone of the surrounding landscape required it, his shirt would have been flaming yellow.

One day Mr. H. brought the beauty of the Mexican camp to call. Her name is Aurelia Sambroña; she has lovely dark eyes and a soft voice; but I was disappointed that she did not wear the dark shawl draped round her head and shoulders as they are worn on ordinary days at the camp. Our Mexican water-cooler has

an inscription of which I asked for the meaning. Aurelia smiled and said: "Help thyself, little Tomasa!" The maker of the jar had pictured to himself some browncheeked maiden lifting it to her lips.

She

After this we went up to the Mexican camp to return Miss Aurelia's call. lives with her married sister; they keep a quiet kind of restaurant. Mr. H. said our call would be regarded as a great condescension, but I confess that when the two graceful, dark-eyed women came in to receive us, their soft voices and movements, and a kind of slow, gentle self-possession, made me feel my own manner crude and angular by comparison. Mr. H. talked for us all, and they looked from us to him, whenever we spoke, with a pretty appealing smile. They offered us the native wine, and the most delicious dried figs,-not withered and pressed, but dark plump lumps of sweetness clinging together.

A ball was given by the Mexicans upon the anniversary of their independence. We went up to see the dancing, which was very beautiful. The Mexican girls have exquisite forms, especially when in motion; their dancing was like inspiration. There were people of every nationality-stout, blonde Cornish youths side by side with slim, swarthy Mexicans. There were Ignatio Enestrajo, a "Chiliano," and the sisters of Castro (the silversmith), half Mexican, half Chinese. A young Spaniard delivered the "oration. I saw the son of the German foreman at the Hacienda dancing with the daughter of the French butcher. The music was very good for the purpose,-a violoncello, two violins, one brass piece, and a flute. They played the Mexican national hymn to open the ball, and much of the "dance music" had pretty Mexican or Spanish names. The refreshments were whisky, ale, Port wine sangeree, lemonade made of some kind of acid, crackers, cheese, candy and The next

nuts.

day (Sunday) we

met a number of the dancers returning home after a few hours sleep. Many of them walked all the way from Guadaloupe.

My last visit to the Mexican camp was during the yellow hazy July weather; it was after a fire had swept away all the houses lying below and around the rock, which rises like a fortress at the north-west end of the camp. The bare sun-baked rock stood out, with all its reddish-yellow lights and purple-brown shadows, in strong relief against the solid blue of the sky. Down its sides were the blackened lines of brick which marked the foundations of the ruined houses. Below, was the little street silent and deserted, with its quiet afternoon shadows stretching across it. It seemed old enough for anything. It might have been a little Pompeiian street lying so still in the broad sunlight, under that intensely blue-bright sky. I sat under the shadow of a Mexican cabin on the high bank overlooking the street. A little girl named Amelia, too slight and small to carry the child she held wrapped in an old shawl, stood beside me and told me the Spanish