The people here dressed better than was usual in other parts of the mines. On Sundays especially, when the town was thronged with miners, it was quite gay with the bright colors of the various costumes. There were numerous specimens of the genuine old miner to be met with--the miner of ’49, whose pride it was to be clothed in rags and patches; but the prevailing fashion was to dress well; indeed there was a degree of foppery about many of the swells, who were got up in a most gorgeous manner. The weather was much too hot for any one to think of wearing a coat, but the usual style of dress was such as to appear quite complete without it; in fact, a coat would have concealed the most showy article of dress, which was a rich silk handkerchief, scarlet, crimson, orange, or some bright hue, tied loosely across the breast, and hanging over one shoulder like a shoulder belt. Some men wore flowers, feathers, or squirrel’s tails in their hats; occasionally the beard was worn plaited and coiled up like a twist of tobacco, or was divided into three tails hanging down to the waist. One man, of original ideas, who had very long hair, brought it down on each side of the face, and tied it in a large bow-knot under his chin; and many other eccentricities of this sort were indulged in. The numbers of Mexican women with their white dresses and sparkling black eyes were by no means an unpleasing addition to the crowd, of which the Mexicans themselves formed a conspicuous part in their variegated blankets and broad-brimmed hats. There were men in _bonnets rouges_ and _bonnets bleus_, the cut of whose mustache and beard was of itself sufficient to distinguish them as Frenchmen; while here and there some forlorn individual exhibited himself in a black coat and a stove-pipe hat, looking like a bird of evil omen among a flock of such gay plumage. CHAPTER XXIII BULL FIGHTING A company of Mexican bull-fighters were at this time performing in Sonora every Sunday afternoon. The amphitheater was a large well-built place, erected for the purpose on a small hill behind the street. The arena was about thirty yards in diameter, and enclosed in a very strong six-barred fence, gradually rising from which, all round, were several tiers of seats, shaded from the sun by an awning.