They make very good servants when treated right, although they often want a change; but they will return to a good master.  I once had a Tarahumare woman in my employ as cook.  She was very industrious and in every way superior to any Mexican servant I ever had.  When not busy with her kitchen work, she was mending her own or her two children’s clothes.  While very distrustful, she was good-tempered and honourable, and spoke Spanish fairly well, and her eyes indicated unusual intelligence.  A white man had deserted her to marry a Mexican woman, and she grieved much, but in time she became reconciled to her fate, though she declared she would never marry again, as all men were bad.

The Tarahumares have made excellent soldiers in fighting for the Government.  In one of the civil wars, their leader, Jesus Larrea, from Nonoava, a pure-bred Tarahumare, distinguished himself, not only by bravery and determination, but also as a commander.  In private life he was civil and popular.

The majority speak their own language, and in the central and most mountainous part, the heart of the Tarahumare country, they are of pure breed.  Here the women object to unions with outsiders, and until very recently light-coloured children were not liked.  Mothers may even yet anoint their little ones and leave them in the sun, that they may get dark.  The consensus of opinion among the tribe is that half-castes turn out to be bad people and “some day will be fighting at the drinking-feasts.”  A few instances are known in which women have left their half-caste babies in the woods to perish, and such children are often given away to be adopted by the Mexicans.  In the border districts, however, the Indians have become much Mexicanised and intermarry freely with the whites.

Be it said to the credit of those high in authority in Mexico, they do all in their power to protect the Indians.  But the Government is practically powerless to control the scattered population in the remote districts.  Besides, the Indians most preyed upon by the sharpers cannot make themselves understood in the official language, and therefore consider it hopeless to approach the authorities.  In accordance with the liberal constitution of Mexico, all natives are citizens, but the Indians do not know how to take advantage of their rights, although sometimes large bodies have banded together and travelled down to Chihuahua to make their complaints, and have always been helped out—­for the time being.  The efforts of the Government to enlighten the Indians by establishing schools are baffled by the difficulty in finding honest and intelligent teachers with a knowledge of the Indian language.