t periodically
through Cruces. Came one day, Lola Montes, in the full zenith of her
evil fame, bound for California, with a strange suite. A good-looking,
bold woman, with fine, bad eyes, and a determined bearing; dressed
ostentatiously in perfect male attire, with shirt-collar turned down
over a velvet lapelled coat, richly worked shirt-front, black hat,
French unmentionables, and natty, polished boots with spurs. She
carried in her hand a handsome riding-whip, which she could use as
well in the streets of Cruces as in the towns of Europe; for an
impertinent American, presuming--perhaps not unnaturally--upon her
reputation, laid hold jestingly of the tails of her long coat, and as
a lesson received a cut across his face that must have marked him for
some days. I did not wait to see the row that followed, and was glad
when the wretched woman rode off on the following morning. A very
different notoriety followed her at some interval of time--Miss
Catherine Hayes, on her successful singing tour, who disappointed us
all by refusing to sing at Cruces; and after her came an English
bishop from Australia, who need have been a member of the church
militant to secure his pretty wife from the host of admirers she had
gained during her day's journey from Panama.

Very quarrelsome were the majority of the crowds, holding life cheap,
as all bad men strangely do--equally prepared to take or lose it upon
the slightest provocation. Few tales of horror in Panama could be
questioned on the ground of improbability. Not less partial were many
of the natives of Cruces to the use of the knife; preferring, by the
way, to administer sly stabs in the back, when no one was by to see
the dastard blow dealt. Terribly bullied by the Americans were the
boatmen and muleteers, who were reviled, shot, and stabbed by these
free and independent filibusters, who would fain whop all creation
abroad as they do their slaves at home. Whenever any Englishmen were
present, and in a position to interfere with success, this bullying
was checked; and they found, instead of the poor Spanish Indians,
foemen worthy of their steel or lead. I must do them credit to say,
that they were never loath to fight any one that desired that passing
excitement, and thought little of ending their journey of life
abruptly at the wretched wayside town of Cruces. It very often
happened so, and over many a hasty head and ready hand have I seen the
sod roughly pressed down, their hot