Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/311

Rh and families and individuals enjoy the rare privilege of dwelling in these noble tenements with their frescoed walls and deep recesses.

Our curiosity was not satisfied with regard to El Carmen, one of the oldest and most dismantled of all the convents in Morelia, having been established in 1593. Intent upon gratifying this curiosity, we bent our steps thither quite early one morning and were amply repaid. In many places the walls were moss-grown and dilapidated, while here and there the tangled vines and grasses and broken columns gave emphasis to the signs of decay that marked the ruin. Sitting complacently upon a broken, fallen column, we beheld an object that filled us with horror—an Indian mendigo, a representation in one, of the ancient Aztec, the pobre Mexicano, and the gentleman of the nineteenth century.



His head was covered by a mass of straggling black hair that fell like the mane of a buffalo over his penetrating black eyes, which were turned upon us with a furtive suspiciousness by no means comfortable. He was barefooted and shirtless. His trousers of white cotton were of rather insignificant dimensions, having only a full width to each leg. Surmounting the whole, tipped slightly to one side, was an ancient stove-pipe hat. Time did not admit of a further inspection, and taking refuge in some rapid evolutionary movements, we rushed through the big open doors, which creaked mournfully on their hinges, on into the vault-like hall, up the steep, shaky steps. It never occurred to us to look back, so sure were we that this remarkable specimen of humanity was in close pursuit. At the top of the stairway, ere we had recovered our breath.