Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/48

 The floors of the other rooms were of imported brick and tiles, the former not less than a foot square and perhaps half as thick, while the latter were octagonal and of fine finish, though, like the mansion itself, they bore the evidences of age and decay.

We enjoyed the unusual luxury of glass windows, and it was enough to puff us up with inordinate pride to look out and see our neighbors' houses provided with only plain, heavy wooden shutters. When it rained or was cold, however, our ill-fitting windows proved an inadequate protection, and it became necessary to close the ponderous wooden shutters, thus leaving the rooms in total darkness.

Our windows were also furnished on the outside with iron rods, similar to those used for jails in the United States, and quite as effective, while those of many of our neighbors had only heavy wooden bars, so close together as scarcely to permit the hand to pass between them. These, I was told by a Mexican lady, were called "jealous husbands' windows."

In the middle of many of the shutters of some of these houses were tiny doors, whose presence, when closed, would never be suspected. They were just large enough for a face to peer through, and when passing along the street on cold or windy days, hundreds of soft, languishing, dreamy eyes might be seen gazing out of these little windows.

In Mexican architecture the window is second in importance only to the roof itself. For, the next thing to being protected from the rain, is the necessity for the family to be able to see into the street. The walls are of such thickness that one window will easily accommodate two of their quaint little home manufactured chairs, and as there is no front stoop, each afternoon finds the señoritas seated in these chairs, taking in the full enjoyment of the usual street scenes. The illustration on page 43 shows a señorita in the window, while on the