I found the people assembled before the old adobe church, where they had just finished their service.  The gobernador at once attracted my attention as he stood with his large white blanket wrapped around him, Indian fashion, up to his chin—­a fine, almost noble personality, with a benign expression on his eagle face.

The Indian never allows anything to interfere with whatever business he may have on hand, be it public or private.  Presently all rose, and eight men, the authorities of the pueblo, marched in two rows to the court house, followed by the rest of the people.  There is always found near the church a commodious building, called La Comunidad, originally intended as city hall, court house, and hotel.  In this case it was so dilapidated that the judges and officers of the court about to be held took seats outside on the lawn in front of one of the walls.  They were preparing to administer justice to a couple of offenders, and as this is the only occasion on which I have seen the details of Indian judicial procedure carried out so minutely as to suggest early missionary times, I am happy to record the affair here in full.

The gobernador and four of the judges seated themselves, white man’s fashion, on a bench erected for the purpose, where they looked more grand than comfortable.  Two of them held in their right hands canes of red Brazil wood, the symbol of their dignity.  The idea of the staff of command, sceptre, or wand, is wide spread among the Indians of Mexico; therefore, when the Spaniards conquered the various tribes, they had little difficulty in introducing their batons (la vara), as emblems of authority, which to this day are used by the gobernadors and other officials.  They are made much in the same way as the ancient staffs, and of the same material, the heavy, red Brazil wood.  Below the head of these canes there is always a hole bored, and through this a leather thong is passed, by which the staff is hung up on the wall when not in use.  Those of the highest authorities are ornamented with silver caps; the lesser officers have smaller canes, in proportion to the degrees of their dignity, while the lowest officials have only a thin stick, about a foot and a half long, through the hole of which a red ribbon is passed.  The small canes are not carried in the hand, but stuck in the girdle on the left side.  Nobody summoned before the judges by a messenger carrying a staff of red Brazil wood dares to disobey the command.  The most desperate criminal meekly goes to his doom, following often a mere boy, if the latter has only a toy vara stuck in his belt with the red ribbons hanging down.  It is the vara the Indians respect, not the man who carries it.

No supreme court in any civilised community is so highly respected and so implicitly obeyed as were the simple, grave men sitting in front of the crumbling adobe wall and holding on to their canes with a solemnity that would have been ridiculous, if it had not been sublime.