Yet it is not to be supposed that under this autocratic and patriarchal rule--for the _regime_ in some respects has an atmosphere of the pastoral scenes of the Old Testament--the _peones_ are oppressed or unhappy. Men who know no other state are contented with their lot, and the poor Mexican creates matters of pastime and enjoyment in his simple life. Bull-fights, horse-racing, cock-fighting, together with dancing and the consumption of liquor--the latter his serious and principal vice--furnish him with distraction, whilst religious feast-days make up the sum. This description applies mainly to the agricultural labourer. The miner stands somewhat apart as a class, pursuing his more arduous, yet possibly more independent, labour under the ground, and living in the clustered _adobe_ huts upon the bare hillside in the vicinity of the mine-mouth. With his pick, bar, and dynamite he jovially enters his subterranean passage, where, generally working under some system of contract, his energies are spurred by the hope of profit depending upon his own efforts--ever a stimulus which the mere day-worker lacks. The system of contract work also obtains in some cases with the agricultural labourer, especially in the cultivation of sugar-cane, which is an important Mexican industry. Fields, with water for irrigation, are allotted to the responsible worker--Mexico is a country whose rainfall generally is insufficient for cultivation without irrigation--and this he cultivates, the _hacienda_ lending seed and implements, and taking as payment a stated portion of the crop. So, if the people generally are poor, they are not discontented. Their wants are exceedingly simple and easily supplied. Furniture and other household chattels are not acquired nor required by the poorer class of _peon_. If he has no bedstead, the earthen floor serves the purpose, and here he and his family sleep, rolled together in their _ponchos_ or blankets for warmth, with an utter disregard for ventilation, damp, or kindred matters. Indeed, if need be, the hardy _peon_ will sleep out upon the open plain without feeling any particular discomfort. The interior _menage_ of a Mexican hut is naturally primitive. The fireplace is often outside, and consists of unshaped stones, between which charcoal or firewood is ignited, and upon these the earthen pot, or _olla_, is balanced, containing whatever comestible the moment may have afforded, and whose contents we will proceed to investigate. If the fireplace is inside, there is often no chimney, and the habitation is smoky and dark, with only a hole in the roof for ventilation. _En passant_, it may be said that some of the methods of the poorer Mexican _peones_ are not much in advance of those of our common ancestor--primeval man!