Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/126

124 light, and do their chores like clockwork; where the father works like an automaton from cock-crow to dusk, without taking time to eat, preferring wicked dyspepsia to unholy leisure, — you might transplant a colony of these just but sad souls, and in one generation they would be reclining in hammocks, looking at the world through great, contented sleepy eyes, and overpowered by the exertion of clapping their hands in order to call mozo or maid to their side with chocolate and cigarettes. The mother might not smoke, but her daughters probably would. The sharp voices would have lowered three full tones, and fallen into a tender minor key; the swift jerkiness of motion would have subsided to a languid, swaying glide; and the whole family would have succumbed to the inertia of this luxurious atmosphere. For, unhappily, laws of nature are stronger than laws of grace; and the law of climatic limitations is strongest of all.

One of the last days we passed in the City of Mexico we had ridden out by Tacubuya to see one of the cemeteries, surrounded by the high walls and stern gates which enclose those silent resting-places throughout the country. Strangely