one-eyed Mexican vaquero hitting flies, one by one with a long rawhide whip, as they crawled up the side of a wall, and took occasion to compliment him on his dexterity. His broad sombrero was off in a moment, and with many low bows and protestatory shrugs and gestures he replied, in good Castilian, substantially as follows:
"Yes, your Excellency, I have made it the study of my life, and have achieved some small measure of success in my efforts, as you do me the infinite honor to remark. I can now hit a fly and knock him off the side of a mule without disturbing the mule, or I can hit the mule and knock him out from under the fly without disturbing the fly. I am quite at your Excellency's service; which will you do me the honor to order me to do?"
I ordered him to go and take a drink, and he demonstrated the soundness of my judgment and his title to my confidence by going and doing so without further parley. To the' credit of the Spanish Americans I will say that my confidence has seldom been abused by them, or proved to have been misplaced. I wish I could say as much for some of my own countrymen!
This part of the coast of San Mateo and Santa Cruz is subject to periodical visitations of various kinds of fish, some of which are almost unaccountable and very peculiar indeed. The baracouta, a species of sea-pickerel greatly valued by the Italian and French cooks for soup and chowder, sometimes swarms in the waters close in shore, and is taken by cartloads. At other times the shore is literally
