Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/45

Rh Intrenching themselves behind these walls, passage-ways are made from one house to the other, until the entire block of buildings is one connected fortification. The strife may continue for weeks uninterruptedly, the fusillade not ceasing long enough to remove the dead from the streets.

The size and unwieldiness of the front doors were amazing—noble defenses in time of revolution, it is true, but when with my whole strength I could not move one on its antiquated, squeaking hinges, almost a half yard in length, the question of how to pass from house to street became a serious one. The happy discovery was made at last that, instead of two, there were four doors all in one, the two smaller ones within the greater serving for our usual ingress and egress. The huge double doors, spacious enough to admit a locomotive with its train of cars, were never opened except on state occasions or for the admittance of a carriage, buggy, or something out of the ordinary, such as a dozen or so wood-laden donkeys. Not only funerals and bridal parties, but every imaginable household necessity for pleasure or convenience, must pass through the front doors.

In the zaguan (front hall), high up in the cedar beams, darkened by age to the color of mahogany, was this inscription or dedication in large, clear letters: "Ave Maria Santissima." In other houses these dedications varied according to taste. One read "Siempre viva en esta casa Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe" (May the Virgin Guadalupe always watch over this house). Still another inscription in the house of a friend read: "Aqui viva con V. Jose y Maria" "May Joseph and Mary dwell with you here."

We were astounded at the size and length of the keys, and the number of them; they were about ten inches long, and a blow from one would have sufficed to fell a man. As there were, perhaps, thirty of them, my key-basket, so far from being the dainty trifle an American woman dangles from one finger in her daily rounds, would have been a load for a burro, as they call their little donkeys. The enormous double doors connecting the rooms were as massive as if each room were intended for a separate fortification. The opening and