Page:Life in Mexico vol 1.djvu/423

Rh and polite than the common country people. Men and women stop and wish you a good day, the men holding their hats in their hands, and all showing their white teeth, and faces lighted up by careless good nature. I regret to state, however, that to-day there are a great many women quite as tipsy as the men, returning home after the fête, and increasing the distance to their village, by taking a zigzag direction through the streets. . . ..

Señor Cañedo, Secretary of State, has formally announced his intention of resigning. Certainly the situation of premier in Mexico, at this moment, is far from enviable, and the more distinguished and clearheaded the individual, the more plainly he perceives the impossibility of remedying the thickly-gathering evils which crowd the political horizon. "Revolution," says Señor de "has followed revolution since the Independence; no stable government has yet been established. Had it been so, Mexico would have offered to our eyes a phenomenon unknown until now in the world—that of a people, without previous preparation, passing at once to govern themselves by democratical institutions."

28th.—We drove out to the Peñon, a natural boiling fountain, where there are baths, which are considered a universal remedy, a pool of Bethesda, but an especial one for rheumatic complaints. The baths are a square of low stone buildings, with a church—each building containing five or six empty rooms, in one of which is a square bath. The idea seems to have been to form a sort of dwelling-house for different families, as each bath has a small kitchen attached to it.