In the country, all Mexicans—­high and low—­wear this national dress; and in this they are distinguished from the Indians, who keep to the cotton shirts and drawers, and the straw hats of their ancestors.  In the towns, it is only the lower classes who dress in the ranchero costume, for “nous autres” wear European garments and follow the last Paris fashion, with these exceptions—­that for riding, people wear jackets and calzoneras of the national cut, though made of cloth, and that the Mexican hat is often worn even by people who adopt no other parts of the costume.  There never were such hats as these for awkwardness.  The flat sharp brims of passers-by are always threatening to cut your head off in the streets.  You cannot get into a carriage with your hat on, nor sit there when you are in.  But for walking and riding under a fierce sun, they are perhaps better than anything else that can be used.

The Mexican blanket—­the serape—­is a national institution; It is wider than a Scotch plaid, and nearly as long, with a slit in the middle; and it is woven in the same gaudy Oriental patterns which are to be seen on the prayer-carpets of Turkey and Palestine to this day.  It is worn as a cloak, with the end flung over the left shoulder, like the Spanish capa, and muffling up half the face when its owner is chilly or does not wish to be recognized.  When a heavy rain comes down, and he is on horseback, he puts his head through the slit in the middle, and becomes a moving tent.  At night he rolls himself up in it, and sleeps on a mat or a board, or on the stones in the open air.

Convenient as it is, the serape is as much tabooed among the “respectable” classes in the cities as the rest of the national costume.  I recollect going one evening after dark to the house of our friends in the Calle Seminario with my serape on, and nearly having to fight it out with the great dog Nelson, who was taking charge of his master’s room.  Nelson knew me perfectly well, and had sat that very morning at the hotel-gate for half an hour, holding my horse, while a crowd of leperos stood round, admiring his size and the gravity of his demeanour as he sat on the pavement, with the bridle in his mouth.  But that a man in a serape should come into his master’s room at dusk was a thing he could not tolerate, till the master himself came in, and satisfied his mind on the subject.

As I said, the equipment of ourselves and our three horses took us into a variety of strange places, for we bought the things we wanted piece by piece, when we saw anything that suited us.  Among other places we went to the Baratillo, which is the Rag-Fair and Petticoat Lane of Mexico, and moreover the emporium for whips, bridles, bits, old spurs, old iron, and odds and ends generally.  The little shops are arranged in long lines, after the manner of the eastern bazaar; and the shopkeepers, when they are not smoking cigarettes outside, are sitting in their little dens, within arms-length of all the wares they have to sell.  Here we found what we had 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.