ver locked, and every traveller,
high or low, rich or poor, has a right to enter it unquestioned, and
"make it his hotel" for the time being. Its accommodations, it is
true, are seldom extensive and never sumptuous. They rarely consist
of more than one or two hide-covered chairs, a rickety table, and two
or three long benches placed against the wall, with a _tinaja_ or jar
for water in the corner, and possibly a clay oven or rude contrivance
for cooking under the back corridor. In all the more important
villages, which enjoy the luxury of a local court, the end of the
_Cabildo_ is usually fenced off with wooden bars, as a prison.
Occasionally the traveller finds it occupied by some poor devil of a
prisoner, with his feet confined in stocks, to prevent his digging a
hole through the mud walls or kicking down his prison-bars, who
exhibits his ribs to prove that he is "_muy flaco_," (very thin,) and
solicits, in the name of the Virgin and all the _Santos_, _"algo para
comer"_ (something to eat).

In most of the _cabildos_ there is suspended a rude drum, made by
drawing a raw hide over the end of a section of a hollow tree, which
is primarily used to call together the municipal wisdom of the place,
whenever occasion requires, and secondarily by the traveller, who
beats on it as a signal to the _alguazils_, whose duty it is to
repair at once to the _Cabildo_ and supply the stranger with what he
requires, if obtainable in the town, at the rates there current. Not
an unwise, nor yet an unnecessary regulation this, in a country where
nobody thinks of producing more than is just necessary for his wants,
and, having no need of money, one does not care to sell, lest his
scanty store should run short, and he be compelled to go to work or
purchase from his neighbors.

The people of Goascoran stared at us as we rode through their
streets, but none came near us until after we had vigorously pounded
the magical drum, when the _alguazils_ made their appearance,
followed by all the urchins of the place, and by a crowd of lean and
hungry curs,--the latter evidently in watery-mouthed anticipation of
obtaining from the strangers, what they seldom got at home, a stray
crust or a marrow-bone. We informed our _alguazils_ that we had mules
coming, and wanted _sacate_ for them. To which they responded,--

_"No hay."_ (There is none.)

"Then let us have some maize."

_"Tampoco."_

"What! no maize? What do you make your _tortillas_ of?"