Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/24

22 Down a steep side street — every street climbs up or runs down a hill — to the beautiful old church with its monstrous façade of carved freestone and three unique spires, and the covered market with its double rows of open Moorish arches, we passed with new delight at every step. Every thing is glowing with color — the sky deep as Italy, the frescos, the flowers, the fine ash trees, the brightly dressed people, the broad white stone seats. The inner court of the governor's palace — patio is a prettier word, so we will use it hereafter — was finished with dado and frieze of blue and yellow; the slender pillars, rising in a double flight of columns between the arches of the first and second floors, were gay with stencilled wreaths of bright flowers; the broad gray stone steps, curving in wide sweeps to the upper galleries, were dressed with fanciful large pots full of tropical plants. From a corner of one of these shaded upper galleries, a most beautiful picture was made by the three red sandstone towers of the cathedral, — one with the round, flat dome of the mosque, one a slender campanile, and one a solid square, but each a mass of most wonderful stone carving, almost barbaric in splendor, and