Sacramento daily record-union., 1889-08-31
ON THE DECK OF A MULE.
OUR CHARMING CORRESPONDENTS
RIDE IN MEXICO
-Banqueting on Tree Oysters
and Fat Snails.

and Fat Snails.
Especial Correspondence of the RECORD, UNION
MULEeE L. C.l, Mexico, 1889.
From La Paz to this place, which is
pronounced Moo-la-hal, is arun of fourteen
hours-that is by steamer in fair weather
No doubt the journey might be made over
land, but it would require many days,
through hardships innumerable-for unin-
habited deserts lie between, and there are
unexplored mountains to be scaled and
rivers of unknown depth to be forded.
We arrived at Mulege anchorage-half
mile or more from the landing place, and
the latter two miles from the town-iust
after dusk on rainy day; and as your
correspondent had decided to stop in Mu-
lege until the return of the ship from
less-important point above, and as the ship
was TO sail at daybreak, there was clearly
no alternative but to get to town as best l
could, under convoy of the Captain and
Purser, who were obliged to transact bust
ness there.
Pulling away from the vessels side in
life-boat, in the dense darkness that pre-
cedes waning moon, we rounded a rocky
promontory and nearly ran into a recent
wreck, looming somber and pitiful-the
wrath of gallant steamer whose few re-
naming timbers were being rapidly dis
membered by the ceaSeless swish of the
waves. Awed and chilled by this encoun-
ter and the Captains tale of drowned
crew, we suddenly shot into a little cove.
where blazed fire of brush and drift
wood which the Mexican Government
causes to be kept up here every night for
the guidance of passing vessels. Around
this primitive lighthouse a score of
swarthy natives were collected, looking in
the Pickering blaze like typical brigands
or the evil spirits of Dante's Inferno as
pictured by Dore-so like the chorus of an
opera that we momentarily expected them
to burst out into song. In the background
under rude nut composed of a thatch of
leaves set up ON poles, were a couple of
women squatted on the ground busilv pre-
pairing the evening meal of beans and tor
tillas
There is generally something uncanny
about entering a strange city after dark,
even amid the hustle of a modern railway
train, with a carriageiin waiting to convey
you to a comfortable hotel but
HOW MUCH MORE WEIRD
| To step from a row-boat over a tossing sea
upon a shellstrewn waste in foreign land
by the uncertain glimmer Of stars in a
| cloudy sky and then to learn that at least
| f,rn Of
robber-infested roadway lies between YOUR
self and the unknown destination, with
no possibility of anything on wheels to
convey you thereto, is calculated tosend
small shivers up and down the spinal col
umn of persons braver than your scribe.
! Neither love nor money could have
hired horse in all the country around,
and the Captains business was imperative
and must be quickly settled. Luckily two
or three gentlemen had come down from
town on muleback and, as had promised
when advised to omit Mulege, not to per-
NIT the fact of being a woman to interfere
with official business, if allowed to accom-
pany the officers, l said not a word, but
meekly mounted in front of the polite
cdbellero, who offered me half his steed,
while the rest of the party, with breeches
tucked inside of high-top boots, plodded
along on foot through mud that would
have reached above my shoes. Not dig
nified entrance, to be sure but my feelings
were assuaged by the remembrance that
the Savior of mankind came into Jerusa-
| lem on a mule, and | thought Of the old
fashioned ditty my grandfather used to
sing:
| For riding double was no crima
In the first good Edwards time
No brave man thought himself disgraced
By two fair arms around his waist
Nor did the lady blush vermillion
Bouncing on woman's pillion."
So we plunged into the blackness of the
night and in due course of time drew bri-
die in front of the casa del Jefe Politico,
and was handed over to the care of Mr..
Jefe Politico himsslf whose august Office
corresponds to that of an English beadle
or Mayor in the United States. At any
rate, he was the most important parsonage
in the town--the one local oficial-and he
lost no time in conducting me to his resi-
dence and presenting me to his wife and
| daughters
And here l have remained for more
than week, charmed with the quaint old
place and its quainter, but kindly, people,
growing more and more sorry as the days
go by that the ship will soon return and
must bid adioS forever to this quiet haven.
If, as has often been asserted, most of
Mexico is "a century behind the tines
this portion of it belongs to days so much
farther back in the shadowy past-the
days of mail-clad Conquistadores and gray
cowled monks of the Order of Jesus-that
it can never, by any possibility, hope to
''catch up" with the nineteenth century in
the slow procession of the years.
THE CITY OF MULEGE
Has present population of about fifteen
hundred, of course mostly Mexican. The
vast majority of its enterprising citizens
have never been twenty miles from home
or at the most to La Paz; and a per-
son so travelled" as that is looked upon
with distinguished consideration. They
have heard of the United States, and in
cidentally of Europe; but they regard the
latter remote and insignificant country,
something as we do tiny island in the
far South Sea-satisfed that it is there,
though of little use to man. As to the
United States-alta Tor "upper") Califor-
MIA, is not to be ignored, being suburb of
the all-important peninsula; but the rest
of that unknown land-for all the Mulege-
ans knew or care-is an inhabited waste,
with port somewhere on Its eastern side
called Nuevo York
Mulege has the usual features of Mexi-
can villages, including a lovely plaza,
where really good music is nightly rem
dered to the promenading citizens, and
where gambling is openly and hilariously
INDUCED in by both ladies and gentlemen.
The fayorite game is