Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/497

Rh some idea of these street cries, I have with much difficulty procured the music of two or three of the leading ones. This is a branch of musical composition that has received but little or no attention from musicians, but by all means some effort should be made to preserve them in their originality, together with exact portraits of the venders as they now appear.

The gritos at the capital possess many interesting features which can be heard in no other city in which I have sojourned; they are wanting elsewhere in that fullness of pathetic and yet humorous melody.

The vocal powers, thus exercised, attain a surprising development, as the voice of an ordinary woman may be heard for squares away.

The most noted of all the female gritos is that of the tamalera, a description of whom appears elsewhere, an old woman from the State of Guerrero, who counts among her patrons many wealthy citizens.

The husky, tremulous voice of a young Indian woman fell upon my ear one morning as I was crossing the threshold of the San Carlos. Around her neck was a strip of manta filled with vegetables. On seeing me, she began importuning me to buy. They were fresh and crisp, but I said to her: "I am a stranger; I have no home here, and have no use for such things."

"But, niña" she added, imploringly, "I am sick, have no home, and under these vegetables in the rebozo is my sick baby, only two weeks old."

Stooping to peep under the load of vegetables, there I saw the tiny babe, tucked away in the rebozo, and sleeping as soundly under its strange covering as though swinging in its palm-plaited cradle.

The mother asked me to stand godmother to the baby at the