Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/13

Rh glorious eyes, play about grated door-yards, which open into small patios, or courtyards, beyond, bright sometimes with shrubs and flowers. The men, with wide-rimmed sombrero and gay zarape, lounge or work or walk about with a grave, dark-eyed imperturbability which contrasts strangely with the inquiring vivacity of their class at home. The blank white walls of the old cathedral, with its broken belfry of adobe, rise across the fields; down one narrow lane comes a caravan of enormous covered wagons, each drawn by sixteen mules in bright trappings, and driven by swarth muleteers in costumes that seem borrowed from Carmen. Around another corner dashes a mounted caballero, sitting his small but fiery horse as if the two made but a single creature full of superb motion. The man wears a broad sombrero, brilliant with silver braid; his short, loose velvet jacket is bright with rows of silver buttons, as are also the wide velvet trousers which lose themselves in stirrups of fringed leather. The animal is resplendent in silver mounted harness, with embroidered saddle heavy with inlaid work; across his neck is thrown a folded blanket of scarlet wool; over his flanks