Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/124

 goods, sales-people, and customers alike might all be put upon canvas only with the most vivid of hues.



I give some examples of the street architecture of the more important shops. The approach to many is under the welcome portales, shady in sunshine and dry in the wet. Not a few of the shops have been old Spanish palaces before being adapted to their present use. I transferred to my sketch-book a bit from the leading merceria (dry-goods store) of the important minor city of Puebla which I thought particularly interesting.

It was called, after the prevailing fashion, "The City of Mexico." The entire front upon which still remained the carved escutcheon, showing that it had been the residence of a family of rank—was faced up between carvings, in a gay pattern in tiles, the figures glazed, the rest an unglazed ground of red.