Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/39

Rh and the Orient is a constantly new surprise. The sandalled feet, the white garments, the bright wrappings, the public fountains, the walled streets and roads, the low, flat houses, the stone balconies, the deep sky, the dark, grave, silent people! Yesterday, at the hotel of Zacetano, the landlady under the upper arches of the inner court clapped her hands thrice, and a dark-eyed muchacho came noiselessly to her side, received her message, and sped away again through the shadows as silently as if he were a shadow himself. For the outer world and the street, there is the blank wall, the grated window, the bolted door; inside, for the household, the sunny courtyard gay with fountains and flowers, the large open arches throwing grateful shadows over vast, cool rooms, the cordial family life with its treasures hidden from the prying eyes of the multitude. Street-criers calling their wares; fruit-sellers with great trays of luscious unknown sweetness upon their heads; water-carriers with earthen jars slung across the backs of shaggy donkeys; the strange, soft, liquid tones of a foreign language, — is it all near our own land and our own people? Is it not Damascus or Syria, or Constantinople, with the muezzin