[Xastir] Help with shapefiles

[LU2DFM - Fernando]

Hello,
I'm fairly neophite and inexpert with shapefiles. I'm using several
files with differente info (county borders, roads, streets, etc.) within
xastir, but all the lines are displayed black. I wish to display
different colors for each map.
When loaded into qGis, the maps are displayed in different colors. I
don't know if this is a propertie of the map (i.e. the colors are in the
map files) or it's qGis which sets the colors when displaying the maps.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?
Thanks a lot.
-- 
73s y DX,
--
    LU2DFM - Fernando