Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/407

 electro-motor is so ingeniously contrived, that it will probably be found applicable to other things besides sewing machines.

THE CITY OF THE ANGELS.

THE CANONIGO.

" call it," quoth the Canonigo, "Puebla de los Angelos; but, for my part," he continued, confidentially, "I don't think it would do this City of the Angels much harm if the Verdugo were to come hither, and hang every man, woman, and child at Puebla to a gallows forty feet high. Hombre!" went on the Canonigo, "I think Puebla would be all the better for it; for, look you," and here he sank his voice to a whisper, "everything that walks on two legs in this city, and, who is not a guerrillero—a brigand—is either a gambler, or a receiver of stolen goods."

These were hard words, indeed, to hear from a patriotic Mexican gentleman, and a dignified ecclesiastic to boot, concerning a city so dignified and illustrious as Puebla. But the Canonigo knew what he was about. It was at the little village of Amosoque, a few miles from our destination, that our clerical friend uttered the strictures, recorded above, on the character of the Poblanas. Now I knew nothing as yet of Puebla; but I should have been quite prepared to agree with anybody who had told me that a little hanging—with perhaps a trifle of drawing and quartering—would have done a world of good to the people who congregated round our carriage window at Amosoque.

"Mala gente! mala gente!" murmured the Canonigo, looking at the Amosoquians who trooped up to the coach window, and stared in at us with sad fierce eyes mutely eloquent with this kind of discourse: "I should like a wheel; I a horse; I that stout man's coat; I his hat; I his dollars; and I his blood." "Mala gente," said the Canonigo, drawing his head in somewhat abruptly, as an Amosoquian of very hungry aspect uttered the word "Caridad!" in a tone which far more resembled a curse than a request. "Por Dios, amigo," quoth the Canonigo, "I have nothing for you. Mala gente!" he concluded, sinking back on the cushions and taking a very vigorous puff at his cigar, "Mala gente"—which, being translated, may be accepted as signifying "blackguards all: a bad lot."

Whenever you halt in a town or village of Old Spain your equipage will be surely surrounded by silent, moody men, wrapped in striped blankets or tattered cloaks, and with shabby hats slouched over their brows, who will regard you with glances that are sad, but not fierce. But faded as is their aspect, they have a quiet, resigned mien, not wholly destitute of dignity. Yonder tatterdemalion of the Castiles seems to say: "I am destitute; but still I am a Don. Poverty is not a crime. I involve myself in my virtue, and have puffed prosperity away. I am bankrupt, but it was through being security for a friend. I am Don Dogberry, and have had losses. I held shares in the Filibusters' Company (limited). The company is being wound up, and another call on the contributories will be made the day after to-morrow. If you like to give me half a peseta you can."

But New Spain! But Amosoque! That small, wiry, leathery, sooty-looking fellow is a half caste. Watch him scowling at you in his striped serape—further south called a poncho—his huge coach-wheel hat like a cardinal's whitewashed, and minus the tassels; his loose linen drawers, bulging through the slashes in his leathern overalls. Salvator might have painted him, but Salvator should have made some preliminary sketches in a Seven Dials slum and a Bowery whisky cellar, to get his hand in. The man of Amosoque utters nothing articulate save an occasional grunt of "Caridad!"; but his eyes are full of speech. They say, "Your throat is precisely the kind of throat I should like to cut. I have cut many throats in my time. I am a bankrupt, but a fraudulent one. My father suffered the punishment of the 'garrote vil;' and my brother-in-law is a garrotter in Puebla. Give me a dollar, or by all the saints in Puebla I, and Juan, and Pepe, and Fernan here will follow the coach and rob it."

Amosoque is a great mart for spurs. The "Espuelas de Amosoque" are renowned throughout Mexico, and the spur makers, I conjecture, allow the beggars to take the goods "on sale or return." They thrust them in, four or five pairs in each hand, arranged starwise, at the windows, reminding you, in their startling spikiness, of the hundred-bladed penknives with which the Jew boys used to make such terrific lunges at the omnibus passengers in the old days, at the White Horse Cellar. These spurs of Amosoque are remarkable for nothing but their length and breadth—the rowels are not much smaller than cheese plates; but you can no more get clear of the place without purchasing a pair of "espuelas," than you can leave Montélimar in Provence without