her hands to her frock, as a courtesying girl would do, and sighed and smiled forth her soul for a sixpence. We were taken aback by the sudden unmasking of her battery, and staggered forth a broken promise, broken in language then, and in fact afterward, that when we returned we would grant her favor. But we did not return.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0b/280-MEXICAN_BEGGAR.jpg/400px-280-MEXICAN_BEGGAR.jpg)
MEXICAN BEGGAR.
The beggars on this route have many arts. They whine and they smile. Blind men play the guitar and violin prettily; and one them would not desist, though bribed with a medio, saying, with true Mexican independence, that "I play for the pleasure of it! Money! that is a mere trifling consideration." Old men and old women abound. The former whine, the latter grin. A jolly type of this last came at us in San Juan and fairly beguiled our pocket of a penny by her bland mutterings and beaming eyes. Two ways I have learned of treating these visitors. One is to say in broken Spanish, "I don't understand you. If you will speak in English, I will give you a medio." This Irish bull answers the purpose of getting up a laugh at their expense, and of nonplusing their wits for a moment. They are not ready for the proposition. Another is to give them a piece of bread or a banana. They reverse every thing here; and if you give them bread when they ask for a stone, or metal, which is stone actually, they are not pleased with your action any more than your children would be in the op-