They all had their bows and arrows, and some were armed besides with old guns and rifles, but they were doubtless only going to pay a friendly visit to some neighboring tribe. They were evidently anticipating a pleasant time, for I never before saw Indians exhibiting such boisterous good humor. A few miles in from San Andres I crossed the Calaveras, which is here a wide river, though not very deep. There was neither bridge nor ferry, but fortunately some Mexicans had camped with a train of pack-mules not far from the place, and from them I got an animal to take me across. CHAPTER XXI IN LIGHTER MOOD If one can imagine the booths and penny theaters on a race-course left for a year or two till they are tattered and torn, and blackened with the weather, he will have some idea of the appearance of San Andres. It was certainly the most out-at-elbows and disorderly looking camp I had yet seen in the country. The only wooden house was the San Andres Hotel, and here I took up my quarters. It was kept by a Missourian doctor, and being the only establishment of the kind in the place, was quite full. We sat down forty or fifty at the table-d’hôte. The Mexicans formed by far the most numerous part of the population. The streets--for there were two streets at right angles to each other--and the gambling-rooms were crowded with them, loafing about in their blankets doing nothing. There were three gambling-rooms in the village, all within a few steps of each other, and in each of them was a Mexican band playing guitars, harps and flutes. Of course, one heard them all three at once, and as each played a different tune, the effect, as may be supposed, was very pleasing. The sleeping apartments in the hotel itself were all full, and I had to take a cot in a tent on the other side of the street, which was a sort of colony of the parent establishment. It was situated between two gambling-houses, one of which was kept by a Frenchman, who, whenever his musicians stopped to take breath or brandy, began a series of doleful airs on an old barrel-organ. Till how late in the morning they kept it up I cannot say, but whenever I happened to awake in the middle of the night, my ears were still greeted by these sweet sounds. There was one canvas structure, differing but little in appearance from the rest, excepting that a small wooden cross surmounted the roof over the door. This was a Roman Catholic church. The only fitting up of any kind in the interior was the altar, which occupied the farther end from the door, and was decorated with as much display as circumstances admitted, being draped with the commonest kind of colored cotton cloths, and covered with candlesticks, some brass, some of wood, but most of them regular California candlesticks--old claret and champagne bottles, arranged with due regard to the numbers and grouping of those bearing the different ornamental labels of St. Julien, Medoc, and other favorite brands.