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Another thing I heard also, namely, that a white man, an Inglese, the first who ever visited these parts, had come to the village about six months before, and was engaged in working some old silver mines on behalf of a company, a task that he found difficult, for the Mexican owners of land in the neighbourhood, being jealous of him and angry because he paid his men a fair wage, were striving to prevent Indians from labouring in his mine.

Now the natives of this place, from Monday morning to Saturday night, were a gentle and industrious people, but they had this fault, that on the Saturday night many of them were accustomed to become drunk on mescal, the spirit that is distilled from the root of the aloe. Then their natures were changed, and fierce quarrels would spring up amongst them, for the most part about women, that ended often enough in bloodshed.

It chanced that such a fray arose on the night of my arrival at Cumarvo. On the morrow I saw the fruits of it as I walked down the little street which was bordered by white, flat-roofed houses and paved with cobble-stones, purposing to attend mass in the lime-washed church, where the bell rang night and day to scare evil spirits back to hell.