stables, the host gives up to you his place at the table, and often, on resuming the journey, will ride half a day, to lead you safely through some mountain defile or dangerous, bandit-infested place—and then the parting is as earnest and as zealous as word and manner can make it.
Natives of climes more frigid may contrast the formal bow, the restraint and stiffness of a possible shake of the hand, and the greeting commonly observed by their own countrymen, with the native ease and graceful cordiality to be met with here. Hence, an introduction into a select circle in Mexico makes a never-to-be-forgotten episode in the life of the favored stranger, cementing the ties which bind him to the country.
Wherever the fates may direct him, he will often experience a yearning to revisit a land where he was ever the recipient of a gracious courtesy scarcely to be found elsewhere. But few Mexicans, save those in diplomatic service, take up their permanent residence in other countries, especially among the Anglo-Saxons. The coldness and formality they there encounter freeze their own warm and cordial manner.
Like the Frenchman, the Mexican talks quite as much with hands and eyes as with his tongue. He shrugs also, but not so unceasingly as his brother Latin.
These gestures are rendered very attractive by the appropriate and graceful manner in which they are used. They are seen as much in the street or horse-cars as in the house.
One of the prettiest and most cunning of all the hand motions is called Beso Soplado, throwing kisses by gathering the finger of the right hand in a close group, touching the lips, then throwing them out fan-like, at the same time blowing on the hand as it is outstretched toward the object for whom the demonstration is intended, thus indicating that five kisses are given at once.
Illustration No. 1 of these movements, "un momentito," signifies the desire to postpone a departure or return, or the performance of some duty, then necessary. In a twinkling the taper fingers ex-
