Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/133

Rh desert slopes, and the veiled women will gather about the great gray stone fountains, dipping their red jars full from the shallow water within. I wonder whether the clatter of the tinkling church-bells will steal across the land from softly-tinted towers; and reptile forests of cactus snare the sun in shining, prickly leaf and glowing blossom; and hundreds of miles away, past walled town and domed city, the shining peaks of the old volcanoes lift themselves into the bright air against the glowing sky of dawn or sunset. And places like this little valley of Nombre de Dios, which we are passing to-day, lying under the mountains by the river-side, its poor cottagers riding home on tired horses to the desolate, small adobe huts, and the evening meal of tortillas, or walking across the pretty fields, husband holding the hand of wife and child, — I wonder whether, with its Name of God changed to the name of some bustling American manufacturer who will develop the silver and copper of its background of mineral hills, its huts replaced by comfortable frame-houses, its scant mesquite fires changed to labor-saving stoves, its rags discarded for decent clothes, and its ruined towers rebuilt into trim