Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/26

24 ; and the kindliness of unassuming hospitality opens every house, rich and poor, to the visitor. It is amusing to think what scant politeness a company of strange tourists, curious, eager, and almost impertinent, would receive in Boston and New York. And still, with all our good-breeding, it is so hard to keep New-England noses from curving superciliously at the degraded Mejicano. Are we beyond taking a lesson?

There are a good many that we might take, without hurting ourselves. There is the good, honest building, without sham or pretence, which looks as if it were made for eternity. There is the power of restfulness and leisure, which, though unhappily a crying evil here, would be one of the cardinal virtues if we could only ingraft it on our stubborn, rushing, uneasy nervousness. There is their way of holding the dear, dark little babies, with a long fold of the nurse's rebozo, or scarf, wound around the little creature from mouth to hips, supporting the back and neck well, and throwing the child's weight on the bearer's shoulder instead of her arms and hips. And there are the exquisitely clean streets, which would make us blush hot with shame,