We were soon back again to Corralitos, and inside the forbidding looking gates. Here we were very comfortably housed, with a bright fire burning in the bedroom fireplace to take the chill off the air, as the rooms in these thick adobe buildings are much like cellars in their temperature, whether it is warm or cold outside. We had not been in many hours before other strangers began to arrive: Englishmen from their ranches, miners from the silver mines, a surveying party, and a number of cattlemen. By nightfall the place was swarming with people, and the problem was where to stow away so many for the night. The long table in the old adobe dining room was three times full. There is no lack of fresh meat on such an hacienda, all that is necessary being to send out the butcher, who kills whatever is wanted from the abundant supply on the range, for in that clear, rare atmosphere meat is preserved until used. There is another feature of large haciendas like this that may prove interesting. I refer to the store, which usually occupies one corner of the building. At this store is found every kind of merchandise that is wanted, and here is doled out to the Indian population in exchange for their work certain quantities of flour or sugar,--you can be sure the amount is always very small,--and in time the simple people draw much more than is due them for work, as they are always allowed credit. Then it is they become peons or slaves, for they rarely get out of debt, but increase it until they are virtually owned by the lords of the soil, who can do as they please with the poor creatures, and work them whenever and wherever they see fit. These debts descend from father to son; in this manner they are continually increasing, and so the chains are riveted. I suppose the system has many advantages as well as disadvantages, but certainly we see the disadvantages to the poor and simple people, who, having their immediate wants supplied, do not care to look beyond. Among the more intelligent this condition is very galling, but as a rule they are shrewd enough to avoid it. Standing a short distance from the inclosing wall of the hacienda, and in the midst of the poor quarter, was a dilapidated Roman Catholic church. There was no resident priest, but one came twice a year from a settlement farther south. At all hours of the day, however, women could be found kneeling in front of the primitive altar, a poor, degraded class, with not as much morality as the most savage tribes who have never heard of civilization. My trip of over two hundred miles down the eastern slope of the Sierra Madre Mountains, from the boundary between the two countries, coupled with the information I gained _en route_, showed me that I might do better by attempting to make my way through the great range from the westward; so it was decided to make the change of base from the State of Chihuahua to that of Sonora.