He was a thin, delicate,
amiable, and very polite gentleman, treating us with much courtesy, for
which we paid him, when his bill was presented, a very liberal
compensation. In the morning we were served, on a common deal table,
with a cup of coffee and a plate of _tortillas_. At eleven o'clock, a
more substantial meal was provided, consisting of stewed beef, seasoned
with _chile colorado_, a rib of roasted beef, and a plate of _frijoles_
with _tortillas_, and a bottle of native wine. Our supper was a second
edition of the eleven o'clock entertainment.
The town being abandoned by most of its population, and especially by
the better class of the female portion of it, those who remained, which
I saw, could not, without injustice, be considered as fair specimens of
_the angels_, which are reputed here to inhabit. I did not happen to
see one beautiful or even comely-looking woman in the place; but, as
the fair descendants of Eve at Los Angeles have an exalted reputation
for personal charms, doubtless the reason of the invisibility of the
examples of feminine attractions, so far-famed and so much looked for
by the sojourner, is to be ascribed to their "unavoidable absence," on
account of the dangers and casualties of war.
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