Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/539

 Rh with a shrewd air, "My husband would like very much to tell you about the drainage" (and she implied that his knowledge of the history of it was immense), "if you would pay him well for it. Why do you not form a company?" she hastened to add, vivaciously ; "he would be very glad to be employed as your engineer."

Needless to say that I applied elsewhere. Fancy a New Yorker of education and standing asking a foreigner whom he had met socially to pay for giving him a few points for publication abroad, about, say the Erie Canal or the Croton Aqueduct!

In similar fashion a literary man of prominence, one who had been a chief-justice, told me that he could not converse with me about the comparative merits of the present literature of his country, but preferred to put it in writing; and then, after many annoying delays and broken appointments, that he could not write it because he could not well give himself the place that rightfully belonged to him; he should have to sacrifice his position to others. I do not cite these as instances of the manners-of all the Mexicans—the old Castilian courtesy still lingers but they only show that a boorish provincialism may still be found in very unexpected quarters. The National Museum is rearranged, and its collections have been rendered much more accessible. It now contains the well-known "Calendar Stone"—at present alleged to be no calendar stone at all, but a sort of gladiatorial rostrum—which has been removed from the corner of the Cathedral. Antiquarian science, in the mean time, has been very active. The tone of the later erudition is to disturb many fond illusions to which we have long been wedded. It is particularly severe with Prescott. One writer, whom I am sure I can never find it in my heart to forgive, however strongly he may back up his