mping along, scarcely
human in aught except the form of those who composed it. The majority of
the Leperos were completely naked, unless the fragments of tattered
blankets that hung in shreds over their shoulders could be reckoned as
clothing. Here and there might be seen a thread-bare jacket or _manga_, or
a pair of ragged calico trousers; while the _sombrero de petate_, or
straw-hat, was worn by nearly all of them. The women had their long lank
hair hanging loose about their persons, forming their chief covering, with
the exception of some scanty rags fastened round their hips. In groups of
twenty to a hundred, some of several hundreds, on they came, all wearing
that vacant look which is the attribute of the degraded and cretin-like
Indian of the Tenochtitlan valley; but which was now modified by an uneasy
restlessness that seemed to impel them irresistibly towards the Rio Frio
mountains. There was something strange and mysterious in the deportment of
this sombre-looking mob; no shout, no laugh--none of those boisterous
outbreaks commonly witnessed amongst numerous assemblages of the lower
classes. On most of their callous, but naturally by no means stupid,
physiognomies, the expression was one of spite and cunning, combined with
indications of a secret and anxious expectation. Over the whole column,
which was at least a mile in extent, hung clouds of smoke, more or less
thick according to the greater or less density of the crowd. Destitute and
wretchedly poor as the Leperos were, they had, nevertheless, managed to
provide themselves, almost without exception, with one article of luxury;
men, women, and children, all had cigars, and the smoke of the tobacco was
by far the most endurable of the odours emitted by this rank multitude.

Upon reaching the rising ground, the squalid throng distributed itself in
groups over the road, or on and around the hillocks, as if intending to
take up its position there. In all imaginable postures, lying, standing,
sitting, and squatting down, they waited; why, and for whom, it would have
been hard to say, since they themselves had only an indistinct perception
of their object. Hours passed away, and there they still were, sunk in the
lazy apathy which is a characteristic of the Mexican Indians, and of all
much-oppressed nations--a natural consequence of the despotism that
crushes them, and causes them at last to look upon the unseen power by
which they are oppressed as the decree of an