The herald-advance. (Milbank, S.D.) 1890-1922, 1911-12-01

angO, represents an average
Mexican village, m that can
be duplicated anywhere In the
northern two-thirds of the country.
1t is typical even in It's legend-all
Once upon a time it's mines yielded
so much rich ore that the owner could
pave with silver the street leading
from his house to the church on the
occasion of his daughters marriage.
Panuco, like all Mexican villages, is
is the same small, now adobe house,
with the fiat roof and II % chimney and
usually no window. Women carry the
same jars of water on their heads, and
men clad in loose white cotton trudge
lazily behind their little burros or
more likely add their weight to the
already overburdened animals. TIE
glazing sun beats down from a trop-
fcal sky on the same palm and cac-
tus, and a general air of emptiness
and silence %pervades the streets.
The universal building material is
adobe, which is faced with plaster only
in the better houses. These are al
ways built in the form of a hollow
s~quare-the rooms opening into the
patio in the center. The more pre-
tentious homes have windows, barred
on the outside because the houses are
built snug up to the street, which
gives them the appearance Of cells
In a prison.
There is no patch of green or any
thing bright to relieve the uniform
dust brown color of house and street,
no spear of grass is in sight, and all
the flowers are kept in the patio. The
particular village can boast Of two
trees, one cottonwood on the out
skirts and n pepper berry.
What One Sees Inside.
To enter one Of these huts is to
stop in on a mud floor, rarely a brick
one, to see a few earthen bowls and
saucers in n corner, a little pile OF
charred ashes in another, and a rude
altar made Of a couple of packing
boxes, decorated with a few gaudy
bits Of tinsel and scraps of ribbon and
empty beer bottles with withered
flowers, an offering to the Virgin of
Guadalupe, who looks down from
the wall. Chairs, bed and table are
luxuries not commonly found. Next
can women are fond of flowers, and
the patios are bright with blossoms
throughout the year.
One traveller describes a Mexican
village as sun, silence and adobe"
and this is ones first and last I'M
preston. Whatever life is Is around
the plaza; for away from here one
sees only an occasional w%ater-carrier
or a peon closely wrapped in his
serape squatting on the ground in the
sur. Pigs and dogs are everywhere.
They come from every open doorway
and follow us, yelping and barking. a
dozen dogs are not too many for an
average family. And the pigs--they
not until cur horses feet are almost
on them do they s.ru2t and lazily
move a step to the right.
But In the evening all is changed
and the place r. full of life and stir.
Everybody comes out to enjoy the
the plaza. Men and women do not
walk together unless married or en-
gagged, but the me- walk three or
four abreast in the inside Of the
promenade and the women on the out
side In the opposite direction. Through
the open doors Of the pulque shops
may be seen groups CT men drinking
the nauseous beverage.
Each Village Has a Band.
These shops, as well as all the
stores, are not known by the names
of their owners, but by some such
fanciful names as FLOWERS of May
Afternoon in April" and "The Sur
prise" No village is too small to
have it's band, and a good one, too,
that plays at the plaza n o. two
evenings a week throughout the year.
The natives are musical, and one
hears everywhere the tinkle of the
guitar or mandolin playing some ma
tive air, like the plaintive La
Golondrina" or possibly the latest i'm
p~ortation from home.
One does not ned to read the sign
"Esquela para %ninas," painted in big
black letters Oh a low plastereG
building, to know that it is a school
for girls, for the children study In
concert and-well, pulmonary troubles
< not common at this altitude.
Primary education is compulsory
throughout the republic, and SO every
village has two schools, n for boys
and another for girls.
Pay day comes once q month. Work