Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/62

60 rising in the midst of strange woods; the softly tinted outlines of mosque and tower; the dark-skinned, white-robed people thronging the roads, — all go to enhance a scene which even without those wondrous heights would be one of fascination, but which with them surpasses the power of words. When at length the stately spires and domes of the great city, glowing with varied color, and its rich Oriental mingling of white walls and arches, are set in the foreground, surrounded by trees and gardens and fountains, the picture can be compared to nothing else. The world holds few scenes to equal it, and none to surpass.

The streets of Mexico are, in a measure, unlike those of any other city we have so far visited. Straight, wide, and lined with handsome houses two or three stories high, almost invariably built of stone, and lighted by large windows opening upon small stone balconies, it loses something of the Eastern character which their narrow lanes of blank adobe walls give to the lesser towns; but it gains a corresponding richness. These little balconies, ornamented often by carvings and always by balustrades of wrought iron, brightened