We tasted some, while the people at the shop were frying eggs and boiling beans for our breakfast; and found it so strong that a small sip brought tears into our eyes, to the amusement of the bystanders. It seemed that everybody was drinking who could afford it; from the old men and women to the babies in their mothers’ arms; everybody had a share, except those who were hard up, and they stood about the door looking stolidly at the drinkers. There was nothing like gaiety in the whole affair; only a sort of satisfaction appeared in the face of each as he took his dose. It is the drinkers of pulque who get furiously drunk, and fight; here it is different. These drinkers of spirits are not much given to that enormous excess that kills off the Red Indians; indeed, they are seldom drunk enough to lose their wits, and they never have delirium tremens, which would come upon a European, with much less provocation. They get into a habit of daily—almost hourly—dram-drinking, and go on, year after year, in this way; seeming, as far as we could judge, to live a long while, such a life as it is. As we mounted our horses and rode on, we agreed that we had seldom seen a more melancholy and depressing sight.
We met some arrieros, who had brought up salt from the coast; and they, seeing that we were English, judged we had something to do with mines, and proposed to sell us their goods. The price of salt here is actually three-pence per