Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/171

 afterward till they dropped, and their life-blood poured with an audible noise, like the spatter of a rivulet. Upon which the boisterous youth of Mexico, of the lower class, cried "Bello!" "Bellissimo!" in frenzied delight.

The gray old walls of the parish church, immense, and of excellent design (as they all are), rise above the amphi-theatre. Within are figures of saints grotesquely adorned, or realistically horrible, in the usual style. The devout Indians are not archaeologists, and have no idea of paying honor other than as they understand it. I have it on authority that when left to themselves they have been known to equip the Saviour of the World in a twenty-dollar hat, chaparreras (a kind of riding breeches), spurs, sabre, and revolver, sparing no expense to make him a cavalier of the first fashion.

The houses of the town, built of concrete or adobe, sometimes plastered and tinted, are of one story. There are some small portals for the use of out-of-door merchants, a few pulquerias, and thread-needle shops, and a meson, or inn, "of the Divine Providence," where enormous wheeled wagons are corralled in line, and muleteers sleep upon their packs, as in the times of Don Quixote.

This is Cuatitlan, this the Mexican village, which can be dreary enough to one who does not look at it with the fresh interest of a new-comer. You cannot take as much comfort in the lower class of people as you would like, on account of their habits. There is no denying that in the neighborhood of Mexico at least they are very dirty. They do not clean up even for their festivals. I saw them dancing at a public ball at the Theatre Hidalgo, which, among other amusements, the municipality provided for them free, on the national festival of the 5th of May. There were charcoal dealers and such persons, with their women, and they had not taken the pains to