Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/302

 282 said to have been signed—the oldest, as it is one of the shabbiest, in the place. It is of one story, like most provincial Mexican houses, with the whitewash badly rubbed off its adobes, and is now a poor fonda, or restaurant, without so much as a sign.

But Iguala is charming. A row of clean, white colonnades, made up of square pillars of masonry, supporting red-tiled roofs, extends around a central plaza. The windows of the better residences are closed, not with glass, but projecting wooden gratings of turned posts, painted green. The market, a little paved plaza, opening from the other, consists of a series of double colonnades, light, commodious, and very attractive. The church, of a noble, massive form, made gay by an azure belfry and clock, stands in a grassy enclosure surrounded by posts and chains. Across the way is the zocalo, with brick benches, deep, grateful shade of tamarindos, as large as elms, and arbors draped with sweet-peas in blossom. Such a park, such a church, and such a market could be conscientiously recommended as worthy of any populace in the world. The heads of palm-trees star the heavier, Northern-looking foliage. Grass sprouts plentifully between the cobble-stones, and gives a rural air. A band played in the zocalo in the evening, though there was but a small scattering of persons to hear it.

As I was making a sketch of the zocalo from a portal some very well-dressed young men and a professor came out. It proved that this house was a school, and a pleasant one it seemed.

"Amigo"—friend they said, in a rather patronizing tone, "what is your interest in this place? What is your picturing designed for?"

Three days farther on is Chilpancingo, to which also complimentary terms—in a lesser measure than Iguala—