mutterings. Unusual circumstances surround them.

Most of the women are within doors; a few of the poorer class—of pure Indian race—are seated in the piazza. They are hucksters, and their wares are spread before them on a thin palm-leaf mat (petaté), while another similar one, supported umbrella-like on a stem, screens them and their merchandise from the sun. Their dyed woollen garments, their bare heads, their coarse black hair, adorned with twists of scarlet worsted, impart to them somewhat of a gipsy look. They appear as free of care as the zingali themselves: they laugh, and chatter, and show their white teeth all day long, asking each new-comer to purchase their fruits and vegetables, their piñolé, atolé, and agua dulce. Their not unmusical voices ring pleasantly upon the ear.

Now and then a young girl, with red olla poised upon her crown, trips lightly across the piazza in the direction of the well. Perhaps she is a poblana—one of the belles of the village—in short-skirted, bright-coloured petticoat, embroidered but sleeveless chemisette, with small satin slippers upon her feet; head, shoulders, and bosom, shrouded in the blue-grey reboso; arms and ankles bare. Several of these may be seen passing to and fro. They appear less uneasy than the men; they even smile at intervals, and reply to the rude badinage uttered in an unknown tongue by the odd-looking strangers around the well. The Mexican women are courageous as they are amiable. As a race, their beauty is undeniable.

But who are these strangers? They do not belong to the place, that is evident; and equally so that they are objects of terror to those who do. At present they are masters here. Their numbers, their proud confident swagger, and the bold loud tone of their conversation, attest that they are masters of the ground. Who are they?

Odd-looking, I have styled them; and the phrase is to be taken in its full significance. A more odd-looking set of fellows never mustered in a Mexican piazza, nor elsewhere. There are fourscore of them; and but that each carries a yäger rifle in his hand, a knife in his belt, and a Colt’s pistol on his thigh, you could not discover the slightest point of resemblance between any two of them. Their arms are the only things about them denoting uniformity, and some sort of organisation; for the rest, they are as unlike one another as the various shapes and hues of coarse broadcloth, woollen jeans, cottonades, coloured blankets, and buckskin, can make them. They wear caps of ’coon-skin, and cat’s-skin, and squirrel; hats of beaver, and felt, and glaze, of wool and palmetto, of every imaginable shape and slouch. Even of the modern monster—the silken “tile”—samples might be seen, badly crushed. There are coats of broadcloth, few in number, and well worn; but many are the garments of “Kentucky jeans” of bluish-grey, of copper-coloured nigger cloth, and sky-coloured cottonade. Some wear coats made of green blankets, others of blue ones, and some of a scarlet red. There are hunting-shirts of dressed deerskin, with plaited skirt, and cape, fringed and jauntily adorned with beads and embroidery—the favourite style of the backwoods hunter, but others there are of true Indian cut—open only at the throat, and hanging loose, or fastened around the waist with a belt—the same that secures the knife and pistol. There are cloth jackets too, such as are worn by sailors, and others of sky-blue cottonade—the costume of the Creole of Louisiana; some of red-brown leather—the jaqueta of the Spano-American; and still another fashion, the close-fitting embroidered “spencer” of the Mexican ranchero. Some shoulders are covered by serapes, and some by the more graceful and toga-like manga. Look lower down: examine the limbs of the men of this motley band: the covering of these is not less varied than their upper garments. You see wrappers of coarse cloth, of flannel, and of baize: they are blue, and scarlet, and green. You see leggings of raw hide and of buckskin; boots of horse-leather reaching to the thighs; “nigger boots” of still coarser fabric, with the pantaloons tucked under brogans of unstained calf-skin, and moccasins of varied cut, betokening the fashion of more than one Indian tribe. You may see limbs encased in calzoneros, and others in the heavy stamped leather botas of the Mexican horseman, resembling the greaves of warriors of the olden time.

The heels of all are armed, though their armature is as varied as the costumes. There are spurs of silver and steel, some plated, and some with the plating worn off; some strapped, and others screwed into the heel of the boot; some light, with small rowels and tiny teeth, while others are seen (the heavy spur of Mexico) of several pounds’ weight, with rowels five inches in diameter, and teeth that might be dashed through the ribs of a horse!—cruel weapons of the Mexican cavallero.

But these spurs in the piazza, these botas and calzoneros, these mangas and serapes, are not worn by Mexicans. Their present wearers are men of a different race. Most of those tall stalwart bodies are the product of the maize-plant of Kentucky and Tennessee, or the buckwheat and “hog-meat” of the fertile flats of Ohio, Indiana, and the Illinois. They are the squatters and hunters of the backwoods, the farmers of the great western slopes of the Alleghanies, the boatmen of the Mississippi, the pioneers of Arkansas and Missouri, the trappers of prairie-land, the voyageurs of the lake-country, the young planters of the lower states, the French Creoles of Louisiana, the adventurous settlers of Texas, with here and there a gay city spark from the larger towns of the “great west.” Yes, and from other sources are individuals of that mixed band. I recognise the Teutonic type—the fair hair and whitish-yellow moustache of the German, the florid Englishman, the staid Scot, and his contrast the noisy Hibernian; both equally brave. I behold the adroit and nimble Frenchman, full of laugh and chatter, the stanch soldierly Swiss, and the moustached exile of Poland, dark, sombre, and silent. What a study for an ethnologist is that band of odd-looking men! Who are they?

You have thrice asked the question. I answer it. They are a corps of “Rangers”—the guerilla of the American army.

And who am I? I am their captain—their chief.

Yes, I am the leader of that queer crew; and, despite their rough motley aspect, I dare affirm, that not in Europe, not in America elsewhere, not upon the great globe’s surface, can be found a band, of like numbers, to equal them in strength, daring, and warlike intelligence. Many of them have spent half a life in the sharpening practice of border warfare—Indian or Mexican—and from these the others have learnt. Some have been gentlemen upon whom fortune has frowned; a few have been desperadoes within the pale of civilised life; and a smaller few, perhaps, outlaws beyond it—bad materials wherewith to colonise; not so bad, if you go but to conquer.

Rude as is the coup d’oeil of the corps, I am proud to say that a high sentiment of honour pervades it—higher than will be found in the picked corps de garde of an emperor. True, they appear rough and reckless—terrible, I might say; for most of them—with their long beards and hair, dust-begrimed faces, slouched hats, and odd habiliments, belted as they are with knife, pistol, powder-horn, and pouch—present such an aspect.

But you would wrong them to take them as they look. Few among them are the pure bandits whose aim is plunder. Many a noble heart beats beneath a rude exterior—many a one truly humane. There are hearts in that band that throb under the influence of patriotism; some are guided by a still nobler impulse, a desire to extend the area of freedom: others, it is true, yearn but for revenge. These last are chiefly Texans, who mourn a friend or brother slain by Mexican treachery.