Early next morning a good-looking young Indian on horseback rode up to the tent to pay me a visit.  He spoke Spanish very well.  I treated him with consideration and proffered him some biscuits I happened to have.  In the course of the conversation he offered to sell me a fowl, if I would send a man to his ranch for it, which of course I was glad to do.

As he was taking leave, I expressed my admiration for the handsome native-made halter on his horse.  “Do you like it?” he asked, and he immediately removed it from the horse and presented it to me.  I wanted to pay for it, but he said, “We are friends now,” and rode off.  The fowl he sent was the biggest he had in his yard, an old rooster, very strong and tough, Could there be food less palatable than a lean old rooster of Indian breeding?  The broth is worse than that made from a billy-goat.

I went to the meeting, and all listened silently while my letters from the Government were read.  Anything coming from Mexico impresses these people deeply.  Yet with the suspicion innate in their nature, the Indians could not hear the documents read over often enough.  We had meeting after meeting, as the arrival in the pueblo of every man of any importance was a signal that my papers would have to be read over again.

The alcalde introduced me to the teacher’s wife, a Mexican, who apparently took her lot very contentedly among “these people whom no one ever knows,” as she expressed it.  She liked the climate, and the security of life and property.  Her husband had been working here for four years.  The children, of course, have first to learn Spanish, and there is no school from June till September.  The youngsters seemed bright and well-behaved, but the Coras told me that they had not yet learned to read.

Most of the Cora Indians are slightly bearded, especially on the chin.  In this respect, however, there was no uniformity, some being absolutely beardless, while others looked rather Mexican.  They all insisted, nevertheless, that there is among them no intermixture with Mexicans, or, for that matter, with the Tepehuanes, and the Cora women have very strong objections to unions with “neighbours.”  On the other hand, it should be remembered that during the latter half of the last century the tribe was subjected to a great deal of disturbance, incidental to the revolution of Manuel Lozada, a civilised Aztec from the neighbourhood of Tepic, who, about the time of the French intervention, established an independent State comprising the present territory of Tepic and the Cora country.  He had great military talent, and it was said that whenever he liked he could gather thousands of soldiers without cost.  He was able to maintain his government for a number of years, thanks chiefly to the Coras, who were his principal supporters.  At one time they had to leave their country, and to live for five years in an inaccessible part of the Sierra Madre above San Buena.