Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/38

36 Such a mixture of commodities running through every class of merchandise, such a strange grouping of effects, such mingling of sharp cries and liquid voices and strange noises, with the chant of the young boys singing in the prison chapel above all, and the deep, wonderful sky looking down to listen! While we were in the plaza, a beautiful flight of birds, a thousand swift-winged atoms, with a dash of warm red on the dark breasts, wheeled and dipped and rose through the clear air with a rhythm of motion that set the scene to music, and so I desire to remember it.

Into this ravishing spot we were whirled without any more warning than the corners of a few sharp mountains spurs could give us; by one of the fiery little mule tram-cars, that tore at a swinging gallop up four miles of steep hillside, around curves as sharp as a thin woman's elbow, with a swarthy conductor blowing his horn like a bronze Triton on the front platform. It was partly its unexpectedness that charmed, and we forgive even the smells of its carceleria for the delight it brought us.

Still the East and always the East! The marvellous resemblance between this tropical world