The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1881-11-30
On a Diligence Road to Mexico.

The diliqencid general is the ordinary
Concord coach, drawn by eight mules,
harnessed in a complicated taugle, which
is technically described as s'two wheel
ers, four on q swing, and two leaders,"
j. e., two at the wheels, four abreast in
the middle, and two ahead. The driver
wore pair of goat-skin breeches, with
the long yellow hair outside, comically
suggesting the legs of satyr. He had
an assistant beside him, who welded the
whip, or, if whipping failed, pelted the
mules with small stones from leather
bag filed for the purpose. There was
extraordinary neatness and precision in
his aim. The offender was admonished
by sharp, unerring little taps on the ear,
or the root of the tail, or q projecting
hip-joint. On these occasions, unlike
the teamster of the Northwest, the Mexi-
cans do not rely on profanity.
Thus far we had met no vehicles ex-
cept the two-wheeled carts drawn by
oxen-wheels without tires, hewn out
and showing the separate strokes of the
AK, but many humble travellers on foot,
market stuff. Fruits and vegetables
cage called hudcal, made of osiers;
tail-feathers of the cock gayly fluttering
through the bars Of the cage, or was d.
vided into compartments, with eggs be-
low and fowls above. We met huge
masses of pottery ingeniously woven
together with cords of the agave and tow
ering perilously above the bearers head !;
rolls of mating, wooden trays, bundles
of sugar-cane, cdnlote Ia kind of sweet
potato), tomatoes wrapped in green
leaves. A pair of live hens never came
amiss, swinging by the legs from dis.
engaged hand, or tied to an available
corner of the load. Whole families were
en- route, even to the baby rolled in one
end of the long cotton scarf which the
Indian mother wears over her head, OF
suspended in its folds at her back. do
not think q stranger procession could be
met with on the high roads of this cen.
tury.
Steadily climbing, the country grow.
ing poorer and wilder, we pass many
little heaps Of stones supporting the
fatal cross-the place of murder
making a mute appeal to the traveller to
pray for one cutoff in his sins. We
enter the mountain passes, dark with
pines and frs, and ascend to the battle.
| ground of Las Cruces, on the divide
which separates the valley of Mexico
from that of Toluca. We pass the
monument to Hidalgo, and ask with
shame who was Hidalgo, and am an
swered, "He was our Washington
this is our Bunker Hill" 1t was here,
on the SUth of October, 1910, that Hidal.
go, with his Indian insurgents, armed
chiefly with slings, bows, clubs, lances
and Dldchetes, met the troops of the
Spanish Government under Colonel
Truxillo, and drove them back upon
the capital. The loss of the Indians
must have been frightful, in their ig-
norance of the nature Of artillery, they
charged Truxillo's guns and tried to
stop the mouth of them with their straw
hats, until hundreds had persisted by
the discharge" After the battle, sad
train of Indian women went up on the
mountain to bury their dead, and the
many crosses that were raised by their
hands gave the spot its nsme.-Ars.
Mary Hailock Foote, in the Century
Magazine.