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Updated: May 10, 2025
"What!" she turned upon him with the fury of a lioness. "Hold thy prating tongue! I marry an American? God! I would give every league of my ranchos for a necklace made from the ears of twenty Americans. I would throw my jewels to the pigs, if I could feel here upon my neck the proof that twenty American heads looked ready to be fired from the cannon on the hill!"
The first part of our ride lay through a dense thicket of underwood, and afterwards across parched up valleys, and over low sandy hills; then past large grazing grounds where cattle might be counted by the thousand and numerous ranchos or farms, the white farm buildings, surrounded by little garden patches, scattered over the hill sides.
Before her half-closed eyes still shimmered a vista of strange, exotic scenes and people, the thronging crowds of carnivals and fêtes; the Mexican girls swaying through the movements of the fandango to the music of guitars and castanets; the great rodeo with its hundreds of vaqueros, which was held at one of the ranchos just outside the town; and, lastly, and most vividly of all, the never-to-be-forgotten thrill of her first bull-fight.
Later, clever men of good families came into the territory, took up land, and made their homes on the great ranchos, but among these there were few who would take the time or trouble to teach the children; so life to the young people was a long holiday. The sad result was that they grew up so ignorant as to astonish the educated strangers who visited the coast.
Indian Ranchos become more frequent as we ascend; and the inhabitants squatting on the ground, or leaning against the door-posts just condescend to glance at us as we pass, and then return to their meditations, and their cigarettes, if they happen to have any.
To do them justice, I must say that we found, on further enquiry, they had not come from their respective ranchos merely to make fools of themselves in this way, but that there was to be some horsefair in the neighbourhood next day, and they were going there.
The devastating gold-fever had swept over the Conroyal and the Randolph ranchos; and had left, of all the grown-up males, only Thure and Bud, who, not yet being of age, had been compelled to stay, much against their wills, to care for the women folks and the ranchos, while their fathers and brothers and all the able-bodied help had rushed off, like madmen, to the mines; and only their loyalty to their loved mothers and fathers had kept them from following.
Some are quadrangular, and do not differ in structure from those of the semi-civilised settlers in other parts; others are open sheds or ranchos. They seem generally to contain not more than one or two families each.
Whenever they stopped for horses at the ranchos lying on the road, they were welcomed by all, and to Apolinaria was shown the greatest deference, and everything was done to make her long ride as little fatiguing as possible, for her fame was known to all, as well as the reason for her present journey. Thus the day passed.
"Then you know something of our Mexican frontier life how for the last half century we have been harassed by the Indios bravos our ranchos given to the flames our grand haciendas plundered and laid waste our very towns attacked many of them pillaged, destroyed, and now lying in ruins." "I have heard of these devastations.
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