Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/101

Rh from sliding off. One pointed tip rested in a small gourd placed upon the ground, and the stick was made to revolve upon this by a swift whirling motion of the fingers. The left hand, meantime, drew the long soft strips of carded wool with a slow movement, into a sufficient tenuity to allow of its being twisted in a strong but rough yarn, around the twirling impromptu spinning-wheel. The rapidity with which the thread gathered upon the reel seemed little short of miraculous, in view of the very original method used in producing it. We bought one of the primitive implements for twenty-five cents. But when we desired to add a yard of narrow cloth woven from the same thread upon a hand loom, the weaver demanded the goodly sum of eight dollars; which shows, if it shows any thing, that even the untutored child of the Mexican plains, as well as the pampered product of nineteenth-century civilization, knows the difference between the manufactured article and the raw material.

One who travels by rail the descending slope from the capital toward Vera Cruz passes in a few hours through all the gradations of altitude which required days to scale on the other side.