In Sonora, Texas, and all the old Spanish colonies generally, where the land is, as it were, left to anyone who likes to take possession of it and cultivate it, there may be found at immense distances, and broadcast like almost imperceptible dots over the waste lands, vast agricultural establishments, each as large as one of our counties. These establishments are called haciendas, a word we improperly translate by farm, which has not at all the same meaning. Immediately after the conquest, the Cortez, Pizarros, Almagros, and other leaders of adventurers hastened to repay their comrades by dividing among them the lands of the conquered, following, perhaps without suspecting it, the example which had been given them a few centuries previously by the leaders of the Barbarians, after the break-up and dismemberment of the Roman Empire. The conquerors were few in number, the shares were large; and the majority of these ragged conquerors, who in their own country had not even a roof to shelter their heads, found themselves all at once masters of immense domains, which they immediately set to work turning to account, laying down the sword without regret to take the pick, that is to say, compelling the Indians who had become their slaves to clear for them the land they had stolen. The first care of the new possessors of the soil was to erect, in positions easy to defend, houses, whose lofty, thick, and embattled walls rendered them thorough fortresses, behind which they could easily defy any attempted revolt on the part of their slaves. The inhabitants had been allotted like the ground; each Spanish soldier received a considerable number as his share; arms cost nothing. There was no lack of stone, and hence the buildings were constructed of vast proportions, and of such extreme strength, that even at the present day, after the lapse of several centuries, these haciendas are an object of admiration to the traveller. Slaves alone, for whom the measure of time no longer exists, and whose only hope is death, can undertake and complete these Cyclopean buildings, of which we, men of another age, cannot understand the existence on the globe, where they stand at various spots, like dumb and touching protests. At the haciendas, in addition to agriculture, which, especially at the present day, has greatly fallen off, owing to the incessant invasions of the Indian bravos, the breeding of cattle and horses is carried on to a considerable extent. Hence, each of these farms contains an infinity of servants of all descriptions, peons, vaqueros, etc., and resembles a small town.