How any white man can survive two years' imprisonment in a Mexican jail is beyond human comprehension; in fact we were informed that it is not intended that one should. I heard it remarked that "if a prisoner has plenty of money it is worth while hearing his case, but if he is poor, what profit is there in trying him?" The judges and lawyers are not likely to go probing around the jails merely for the sake of satisfying their craving for the proper dispensation of justice. We were told by one of the oldest resident Americans that if in the defense of one's own life it becomes necessary here to take the life of another, the safest thing to do is to collect such arms, ammunition and money as may be immediately at hand and make straight through the country for the nearest boundary line, never submitting to detention until the ammunition is exhausted and life is entirely extinct. The filthiness and misery within the walls of a Mexican jail exceed the powers of human tongue to describe, and tardy justice in seeking a man out in one of these Plutonic holes is generally scheduled to arrive a day too late.
With the exception of wood-ticks, the crop that thrives best of all in this part of Mexico, all the year round, is grass. There are two notable varieties; one is known as the South American Paral grass, and the other as Guinea grass. Both are exceedingly hardy and grow to great height. The Paral grass does not make seed in Mexico, but is generated from the green plant by taking small wisps of a dozen or more pieces, doubling them two or three times, after which they are pressed into holes made in the ground with a sharp stick, much after the manner of planting corn, and in rows about the same distance apart. Three or four inches of the wisp is allowed to protrude above the ground. It is generally planted thus in the latter part of May,--though at this season the ground is very dry,--because when the rains begin everybody is so busy planting and caring for the corn-crop that everything else is dropped. As soon as seasonable weather begins the grass sprouts and sends out shoots along the ground in every direction, much like a strawberry-vine. From each joint the roots extend into the ground, and a shoot springs up. By the early fall the ground is completely covered, and by the first of January it is ready to pasture lightly. The growth is so thick and rapid that it smothers the weeds and even many of the sprouts that spring up from the stubs and stumps. I saw a small patch of this grass that had been planted early in April when the ground was so dry that it was impossible to make openings more than two or three inches deep with the sharp-pointed sticks, as the holes would fill up with the dry loose earth. This patch was planted by a native who wished to test the hardiness of the grass, and with little expectation that it would survive the scorching sun of April, May and a part of June, until rain came. It was in May that I examined this patch, and pulling up several wisps I did not find a single spear that had sprouted or appeared to have a particle of life or moisture in it. But when the rainy season commenced every hill of it sprouted and grew luxuriantly. During the rainy season in the fall it will readily take root when chopped into short pieces and scattered broadcast on the ground.