Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/66

 Choosing any street at random where all are so attractive, and proceeding to its termination, in this direction or that, you arrive now at a mere cul-de-sac, now at a city gate, now at vestiges of adobe fortifications, with a moat. Few vehicles, apart from the hackney-coaches, are to be seen, but plenty of troops of laden donkeys, and everywhere the cotton-clad natives themselves bearing loads under which the regular beasts of burden might stagger. There is a story that when wheelbarrows were first introduced to their notice on the railroad works, the natives filled them in the usual way, and then carried them on their backs.

Each separate kind of business has its distinctive emblem. The butcher—elsewhere not a person noted for great taste in ornament—displays a crimson banner, and has his brass scales decked with rosettes. His supplies are brought him by a mule, trotting along with quarters of beef or carcasses of mutton on each side hung from hooks. But it is especially the pulque shops (corresponding to our corner liquor stores) which devote themselves to decoration in its most florid form. Not one so poor as to be without its great colored tumblers, and ambitious fresco of a battle scene, or subject from mythology or romance. They delight in such titles as "The Ancient Glories of Mexico," "The Famous St. Lorenzo," "The Sun For All," "The Terrestrial Paradise," and even "The Delirium," which often enough expresses the condition of customers who imbibe too freely.

On the tramways pass not only passenger-cars, but others for freight. They move the household goods of a family, for instance. There are also impressive cata-