full of little stones; without windows, but generally possessing the luxury of a chimney, with a couple of bricks forming an arch over it to keep out the rain. Glimpses of men smoking cigarettes at the doors, half-naked brown children rolling in the dirt, and women on their knees inside, hard at work grinding the corn for those eternal tortillas.
At San Juan de Dios Mr. Christy climbed to the top of the Diligence, behind the conductor, who sat with a large black leather bag full of stones on the footboard before him.
Whenever one of the nine mules showed a disposition to shirk his work, a heavy stone came flying at him, always hitting him in a tender place, for long practice had made the conductor almost as good a shot as the goat-herds in the mountains, who are said to be able to hit their goats on whichever horn they please, and so to steer them straight when they seem inclined to stray.
But our conductor simply threw the stones, whereas the goat-herd uses the aloe-fibre honda, or sling, that one sees hanging by dozens in the Mexican shops.