come for, and much more too, in the way of wonderful old spurs, combs, boxes, and ornaments; so that we came several times more before we left the country, and never without carrying away some curious old relic.
Mexico, as everybody knows, is decidedly a thievish place. The shops are all shut at dark, after the Oración, for fear of thieves. Ladies used to wear immense tortoise-shell combs at the back of their heads, where the mantilla is fastened on; but, when it became a regular trade for thieves to ride on horseback through the streets, and pull out the combs as they went, the fashion had to be given up. These curiously carved and ornamented combs are still preserved as curiosities, and we bought several of them.
While we were in Mexico, they knocked a man down in the great square at noon-day, robbed him, and left him there for dead. The square is so large, and the sun was so hot, that the police—whose head-quarters are under the arches in that very square—could not possibly walk across to see what was going on!—moral, if you will have the distinction of having the largest square in the world, you must take the consequences.
Of course, where thieving is so general, the market for stolen goods must be a place of considerable trade, and this Baratillo is one of the principal depôts for such wares. One may realize here the story of the citizen, in the old book, who had his wig stolen at the beginning of his walk through London, and found it hanging up for sale a little further on. Here the deserter comes to sell his uniform and his ricketty old flintlock. Small blame to him. I would do the same myself if I were in his place, and were compelled to serve under one rascally political adventurer against another rascally political adventurer—to say nothing of being treated like a dog, half-starved, and not paid at all, except by a sort of half license to plunder. “Those poor soldiers! we can’t pay them, you know, and they must live somehow.”