leather waistcoat, which serves to support and balance the large jar. Both jars are attached to straps which cross on the head over a palm-leaf cap with leather visor. It is essential that these vessels correspond in size and perfectly balance. If either be suddenly broken, the aguador at once loses his balance and falls to the ground.
On the opposite side to the rosadera he carries a deerskin pouch called barrega, adorned with figures. This pouch serves for carrying the nickel coins and pitoles, or small red beans with which he keeps an account of the number of trips he makes, being paid at the end of a week or fortnight, according to the number of beans he leaves at a house. He also keeps a corresponding "tally-sheet" with beans, and compares notes with his employer when being paid.
The aguador is a person of importance; nobody knows better than he the inner life of the household that he serves. He is often made the messenger between lovers, and when for any reason he may refuse to perform that office, the ingenious lover resorts to artifice, and by means of wax fastens the missive upon the bottom of the chochocol, and the unconscious aguador thus conveys it to the expectant fair one, who informed of the device, is ready to remove the epistle. He often wonders why the young mistress comes out so early in the morning to meet him, and that he so frequently finds her lover standing at the door of his house.
The aguador scarcely ever dines at home. His wife meets him with a basket covered with a napkin at the entrance to some house, and there, together with his children and companions, he dines with good appetite and without annoyance of any kind. Then he goes to the fountain where he is accustomed to draw water, frees himself of his jars, and stretches himself in the shade to take his siesta; or he spends the rest of the day at some pulque shop, playing a game called "rayenla" with his companions, or repeating pleasantries and proverbs to the maids that happen to pass near him, and drinking pulque. But in the midst of this monotony, they also have their days of enjoyment, their days of merriment and diversion. The feast of the Holy Cross arrives, and when day begins to dawn, they burn
