where it really is, upon the other side. But let us not make the mistake that the English have made in some of their recent ventures, and wait until there is no government to treat with. Hitherto Mexico has succeeded in preserving her integrity; the next stage will inevitably be disintegration. The movement of Marquez is an effort to sever the Pacific States secession, in short. If successful, it would be followed by other similar subdivisions; and ul present system, Mexico is hurrying toward its dissolution; and it would be well for the country if Mr. Romero and her other able statesmen would see it, rather than spend so much talent to disprove that which is palpable to much less able men. That the system is ruinous it takes but little to prove. In our own time-that is, about the period of the settlement of the State of California-the State of Sonora, one of the richest States in Mexico, had a population of about one hundred and eighty thou-timately each fragment would resolve itself into sand. It is now less than seventy thousand, including Yaquis and Indians. Up to a comparatively recent date, the revenue of the port of Guaymas' was upward of three millions of dollars. At the present time, not sufficient can be collected to pay the salaries of the officials! Yet the enormous duties on flour were imposed to protect the wheat-raising interests of this State. It is unquestionable that a considerable portion of the trade of Tucson, Arizona, is contraband with the northern States of Mexico some of the contraband goods finding a market even so far south as Culiacan, and the Mexican Government is utterly powerless to stop it. The Zona Libra is an illustration of a similar condition of affairs on the other side. The decadence of Sonora is only an example of the condition of other States of the west coastof Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Jalisco, Colima, etc. All who have known the west coast during the last twenty years can bear witness to the sad change which has taken place-a change the more marked and startling by contrast with the prosperity and progress of the American States adjoining. It is more than probable that the Mexican ministers, who are very able men, are well aware of their danger and of the exigencies of their situation. Cut off, as they are, from all hope in Europe, owing to the severity of the terms which they have imposed upon their European creditors, they have at last turned to the United States; and though dreading, as is but natural, their powerful and hitherto aggressive sister, have overcome, by a supreme effort, at once their pride and their dread, and sought her assistance. It is on this account that we are disposed at first to regret the severity and bitterness of Mr. Foster's reply; although there can be no question but that it will do good, by provoking them-as, indeed, it has already provoked them-to a more critical examination of themselves, and a better understanding of their neighbors. It is quite as well, perhaps, as a matter of policy, that we do not appear in too great a hurry to enter upon more intimate relations, either of trade or reciprocity, and that the urgency shall be and appear to be, several fragments, and so ad infinitum. In the opinion of all unprejudiced observers, the outlook at present is more gloomy than ever, and it is impossible that such able men as those at the head of Mexican affairs do not see it talk confidently as they may. We see already several revolutions, or pronunciamentos, in behalf of the rival candidates, and Lerdo de Tejada silently awaiting the opportune moment to strike his blow; and it is quite possible that, among them all, General Diaz may be forced to abandon the “plan de Tuxtepec," and sustain a military dictatorship. Whatever may be the final result, the United States will ultimately be compelled to sustain some one, or see one of the great European powers step in and do it for her-a contingency not to be thought of. What, then, awaits us, after all, but to accept the invitation of Señor de Zamacona, and aid their righteous and intelligent endeavor to help this rich but unfortunate country out of its difficulties, by substituting the arts of peace for those of war and discord? A careful perusal of the correspondence of Ministers Foster and Romero will well repay any one for the effort; but it is certain that each has made a capital mistake. That of Minister Foster is in supposing that special legislation has been directed by Mexico against Americans. This is not so. The Americans have neglected their own interests, and permitted the commerce of Mexico to pass into the hands of European merchants, partly because their attention has been directed more to mining interests; and more particularly because, up to the present time, they have been ignorant of the methods by which European capital has hitherto supplanted them in purely commercial enterprises. It is a mistake to suppose that the burdens which are imposed upon the mining industry are directed principally against Americans. It is, on the contrary, but a portion of the same fatal inheritance and error which has ruined every other Mexican industry. The nine and a half or ten per cent. of duties which are imposed upon the export-of silver in Mexico do not directly legislate against the individual miner who sells his exchange against his silver at a premium of eighteen per cent., but it does depress the principal industry of Mexico, because all the silver produced by her enters the markets of the world burdened by those duties, or by the exchange against her, which represents them. Indirectly the burden is cast upon the people of Mexico, as, indeed, are all other tariffs or exactions to which commerce is subjected. The merchant who has to pay the duties upon the entry of the merchandise and the duty upon the export of the silver, reimburses himself by charging additional prices upon his goods, and the actual result to Mexico of the present system is a bankrupt nation, a bankrupt treasury, bankrupt custom-houses, and the degradation, poverty, and misery of the poorer classes, to a degree almost beyond our conception. The European merchants and the contrabandistas are the sole gainers; but then, as everybody engaged in business in Mexico does more or less smuggling, there is quite a large class who may be said to gain by the miserable system which prevails. Señor Romero's capital mistake is in supposing that it is unsafe to trust Americans with franchises without the excessive precautions which he frankly owns he deems necessary. Still the mistake is a very natural one. Previous to our civil war, the United States was an aggressive nation-particularly greedy of southern territory. It is difficult to explain how Mexico could have acknowledged the secession of Texas, or wherein her principle of sustaining her natural integrity differs from ours as declared and sustained at a later date. Yet this very principle cost Mexico, as the results of the war with the United States, half her entire ter | ritory. It is not surprising, therefore, that her people view us with distrust, and wish to attach conditions to any concession of magnitude which they may be willing to make us. Still, such able men as Minister Romero, and others, ought to know, and probably do know, that the United States, since the abolition of slavery, is no longer an aggressive nation; that they are opposed to the acquisition of more territory; so much so, that, according to the Saturday Review, an eminent American lately declared that "he wished for no war but one with Mexico, of which the object should be to compel the Mexicans to take back a large part of the country which was annexed by the United States forty years ago." This may seem like a jest; but there can be no doubt but that it fairly illustrates the American sentiment at the. present time. Some modification of the present boundary line, embracing the mouth of the Colorado River and the navigation of the Gulf of California, may, indeed, be deemed desirable, but if it should be proposed and accepted, the concession would be liberally paid for; and if deemed objectionable, would never be pressed. Under these circumstances it is difficult to see any sufficient motive to keep the two republics apart, while their interests so manifestly call for their amicable commercial association. Their fraternal accord would replenish the treasury of Mexico, sustain her chosen Executive, put an end to revolution and dissension, relieve the poor, and enrich the rich. It would open the vast treasuries of that wonderful country to the commerce of the world, and furnish a new and inexhaustible field for the young and enterprising of our own race and nation. HENRY S. BROOKS. IN THE SHADE. Where fragrant redwood branches bend and sway, A starry blossom, white and lovely, stood; Unvisited by sunshine all the day, Save that sometimes a lonely, glimmering ray, When winds had stirred the boughs, crept softly through. And blue-eyed lupines smiled their happiest way; S. E. ANDERSON. SHEPHERDS AND SHEEP-HERDING. | with a wary and forbidding eye; is keenly watched during his progress through their lands, and along public roads, to see that he does not pick up any of their sheep that may have chanced to wander from the main bands-for loose sheep will join the first band they come across, or that comes across them, in conformity with the primary dictates of sheep nature--and is kept vigorously to road limits, and to the statute distance of six miles travel per diem. Thus it will be seen that the poor devil commencing the sheep business has no greater quantity of roses strewn along his path than his brother fiend who adventures in other spheres of industry; but that, as Virgil has it in his Eneid, though easy to get down to hell, it is hell to get up. Time was, before the upspringing of agricultural interests in California, when all those vast tracts of level land which had been, under the Mexican régime, the legitimate domain and unquestioned grazing ground for tens of thousands of wild, scraggy, long-horned steers, were given up, through probably half their extent, to the breeding of sheep. This was true, even so lately as fifteen years ago, of almost all Southern California. The whole of Los Angeles, Kern, Tulare, Fresno, and Monterey Counties, besides most portions of the San Joaquin Val Shepherd life in California is not without incident and individuality. It has methods and habits peculiarly its own, partly on account of the nature of the country, partly on account of the class of men who engage in this industry. There is, for instance, your large rancher-your big "sheep-man"-who owns leagues of country, and acres well up in the decades of thousands; whose sheep, numerous as his acres, are divided into flocks, or "bands," as they are colloquially called, of from two to three thousand head each; there is your smaller holder, whose grazing ground, owned or rented, as the case may be, will not permit of his keeping stock on hand beyond a limit of from five to ten thousand; and lastly there is your "atom" in the economic sheep world-your parvenu, or interloper in the business-your small beginner, who, from a mere handful of ewes, through years of hard work, patient drudgery, and biting economy, manages to become the proprietor of a "band," and, with his one or two thousand sheep, regards himself as a magnate in his own sphere. Each of these classes has its own distinctive life, and peculiar method of doing things. The large sheep-owner has his "home-ranch" or station, furnished with handsome dwelling and out-houses, which, perhaps, he only visits at rare intervals, when he imagines that his interests require his presence, leav-ley, were sacred to cattle and sheep. Graduing, for the best of the year, the control of his business in the hands of a foreman, superintendent, or “major-domo,” as he is commonly called. The lesser owner has these things, though in a lesser degree, proportionate to his position; while the poor beginner, who is, as it were, on the lowest round of the ovine ladder which ascends gradually into the lofty beatitudes of sheepdom-heights which he can never hope to scale, and which are as far above him as Nob Hill is above Tar Flat-occupies the obscure position of nomad, Bohemian, "bummer," or vagrant, in the great fleeceocracy; owns no land, can pay no rent; but slinks up some faraway, unoccupied cañon, where he pitches his tent until all the feed is eaten out, when he folds the said tent like the Arabs, and steals away like the shepherd in Milton's "Lycidas”: "To fresh woods and pastures new." He is, in very sooth, the bummer and tramp among sheep men. He is looked upon by them ally sheep drove out cattle, and the plowshare sheep. The artesian-well-bespangled plains of Los Angeles; the steaming flats of Kern River unhealthy, but rich; the wide stretches flanking the San Joaquin River and its tributaries; the black soil of the Salinas district, used to be green with herbage, and dotted with myriads of animal life, brown and white, great and small. Now the "sheep man," unless he owns such pasture lands as he cannot sell profitably at present rates for agriculture, or such as are unfitted by nature for the growth of anything but grass, is driven of necessity to the foot| hills. These are the legitimate pastures of California, and were they more bountifully supplied with water, would compare favorably with any grazing grounds in the world. But in many districts where fall feed is plentiful, living springs are few; and thus it happens that extensive tracts must be fed to sheep either when green, or not at all. The ranches of the coast counties proper-Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, and San | imbecility which are generally presumed to be the indispensable characteristics and crucial test During the greater part of the year-in fact, at all times except "lambing," and when engaged at the home ranch, at the momentous epochs of "shearing" and "dipping"-the shepherd lives as solitary a life as that of any early Christian hermit in the wilds of Sinai or the Nubian desert. He is relegated to the company of his sheep, and his dog-if he has one, for some sheep-owners will not permit the use of dogs. They are his only associates of the animal world as the days and weeks speed on. Once a week, perhaps, the man who carries the rations around to the various camps may chat with him for a minute or two, if he has time; but more frequently will not see him at all, leaving the "grub" at the camp, while the shepherd may be two or three miles away with his band. Once in a while, too, the "boss," or major-domo, may ride round-generally when he is least expected-to catch him napping, to give him orders about changing his feed, or to look into the condition of the flock, as the case may be. But, apart from these casualties, the shepherd is, so far as human intercourse is concerned, as completely alone as if he were in solitary confinement in a penitentiary. True, he has liberty, freedom, air and sunlight, the forms of nature, if he has any eye for them or The life of a shepherd-or sheep-herder in the vernacular-in California is no sinecure. The Virgilian pastorals and the idyls of Arcady, romantic with gallant Corydons and neat-handed Phyllises, do not "pan out" well on California ranches. We would defy the most imaginative of poets, aye, even the highstrung Don Quixote himself, to cast a glamor over the California sheep-herder. Not all the art of mediæval necromancy could make red stockings, knee-breeches, trunk hose, plush waistcoats, yellow surtouts, and the usual "rig" of china mantel - piece shepherds and other poetic characters "of that ilk," out of the grimy flannel shirt, with breast open "to the buff," the soiled blue or brown overalls, and the sockless | feet stuffed into a pair of old slipshod army shoes, which embody-we have the shame and assurance to say-the generic type of the California sheep-herder. We say, advisedly, the "generic type," for as every 'rule has its exceptions, so there are some few rare and shining exceptions to this picture scattered over the country here and there; but they are most un-appreciation of them; he can read on the range qualifiedly the exception and not the rule, and are, indeed, owing to this very peculiarity of being neat in their personal appearance and particular in their habits, liable to be looked upon by sheep-owners with suspicion and mistrust, as not embodying the time-honored attributes of filth, sloth, slovenliness, and mental in summer when the feed is good and the sheep tranquil, or during the long evenings in his cabin in winter, if he has any taste for books, or the good luck to possess them. True, he can do all this, and may even do it profitably; but still, our experience is that a man who can go through this solitary ordeal for any length of time, and come out mentally unscathed, must be either eminently "level-headed," commonsense and practical, or eminently an idiot. If he ranges between these two extremes, as the generality of men do range, the chances are that the unevenly adjusted mental mechanism will become still more irregular and erratic; that latent eccentricities will be developed; that those already existing will be exaggerated; and that a human being who, under ordinary circumstances, would have gone through life with tolerable credit, will become either unfit for any other occupation, or totally imbecile, and eventually a burden to the State as inmate of an insane asylum. That facts will bear out this position it is only necessary to refer to the records of the insane asylums in this State, which can boast of a far larger percentage of persons who have followed the vocation of sheep-herding than any other. The nearer the man approaches the brute in nature, the better fitted is he for this business; and, perhaps, the best shepherds of all are Mexicans or native Californians. herder happens to be peculiarly churlish and misanthropic, or his "boss" extremely penurious in the matter of supplying the camp with rations-the desire to hear the news of the outside world will alone provoke hospitality; the tramp occupying the same honored and welcome position in the esteem of the herder as did the wandering bards, harpers, and troubadours of old in that of the know-nothing barons whose castles they visited on their customary rounds. The rations of a shepherd consist of a sack of flour, a bag of beans, a sack of potatoes, some coffee, tea, sugar, salt, etc., with either the priv ilege of killing a sheep when out of meat, or the allowance of a quarter of mutton killed at the home ranch, and "packed" round by the "packer"-as the man who brings round rations to the camps is called-once a week. This is supposed to be the most niggard estimate in the way of rations, but we have known cases where even this poor supply has been suffered to fall short, through the niggardliness of "bosses," or the neglect of "packers;" and where the poor herder has been reduced to the single articles of beans and salt, together, of course, with the mutton it was always in his power to supply himself with. We have known complaints to effect no redress, and as a conscientious herder will not leave his sheep, even at night, more especially if they are "corraled" in a rough country, fearing the incursions of wild animals, all he can do is to give notice to "quit." This, too, may pass unheeded, and he is practically at the mercy of the "boss," unless he thinks fit to take strong measures. "Strong measures" might consist in either driving the sheep into the "home station," demanding his pay, and leaving immediately; or, as some slighted shepherds have done, not even taking the trouble to do this, but leaving the band in the corral, trudging alone into the "boss's" presence, and making the same authoritative demand. But as sheep-herding does not tend to stimulate heroic action, and as "bosses" in general do not drive men into corners, such occurrences are, happily, not frequent. The home of the California shepherd is a cabin, sometimes made of rough boards, sometimes of redwood "shakes," about twelve feet by eight; supplied, in regions where wood is plentiful, with a rude stone fire-place, or a small sheet-iron cooking- stove. Sometimes merely a tent is provided, and the herder does his cooking as he can, outside. During the summer this latter class of domicile is not unpleasant, that is, if it can be pitched under the shade of a tree; but woe to the luckless herder who is compelled to camp in a tent upon the bare California plains beneath a nearly vertical sun! His cabin is provided with a small deal table, a stool or two, some shelves on the wall, and a bunk made of deal boards attached to one of the walls; and if he is in luck, or has a "boss" who has a little respect for his help-which the "bosses" rarely have a stove or fire-place. The floor of the cabin is usually literally a "ground floor,” though instances of shepherds' huts being built with plank flooring are getting more common in the case of recent erections. His cooking utensils consist of a coffee-pot, bak- Close to the shepherd's cabin stands the ing-pan, frying-pan, and goblet; his dishes are "corral," a Spanish term for the fold into which usually limited to a tin plate, cup, knife, fork, and the sheep are put at night, though originally spoon. Some old coffee-canisters and tin plates applying only to cattle and horses. This is vamay eke out this by no means luxurious appa- riously constructed-either of boarding, nailed ratus; and some huts upon certain ranches have laterally to vertical posts set in the ground, been known to aggregate a sufficient quantity movable panels, pickets, or brush. Brush corof odd plates, cups, knives, etc., to put them in rals are the simplest, and are much in vogue a position to entertain two or three guests. A where timber is plentiful; lumber corrals are of passing tramp or two, for instance, may drop in course universal on the plains. The object of for a supper, night's lodging, and breakfast, the sheep-corral is two-fold: to prevent the flock which he is pretty sure to get, for-unless your ❘ from straying off during the night, unknown to |