There was nothing like gaiety in the whole affair; only a sort of satisfaction appeared in the face of each as he took his dose.
It is the drinkers of pulque who get furiously drunk, and fight; here it is different.

These drinkers of spirits are not much given to that enormous excess that kills off the Red Indians; indeed, they are seldom drunk enough to lose their wits, and they never have delirium tremens, which would come upon a European, with much less provocation.

They get into a habit of daily--almost hourly--dram-drinking, and go on, year after year, in this way; seeming, as far as we could judge, to live a long while, such a life as it is.

As we mounted our horses and rode on, we agreed that we had seldom seen a more melancholy and depressing sight.
We met some arrieros, who had brought up salt from the coast; and they, seeing that we were English, judged we had something to do with mines, and proposed to sell us their goods.

The price of salt here is actually three-pence per lb., in a district where its consumption is immense, as it is used in refining the silver ore.