Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/73

Rh an archway led to baths for horses, which were novel and pretty enough. Think of equine aristocrats, who have first a courtyard full of clean dust to roll in; a preliminary swimming-tank to flounder about in; careful attendants, with soap and brushes, to shampoo mane and tail, and to wash teeth and cars as if they were caring for babies; and a regal pond of clean water to finish their ablutions, from which they emerge shining, sleek, and beautiful as the winged steeds of Parnassus. Good horses, when they die, must go to Mexico.

If the journey through the country, with its immense preponderance of poor dwellings and adobe huts, should have tended to make you believe that this is the native land of poverty, take a drive any evening, from five to seven, along the Paseo which Maximilian planned from the walls of the city to the Castle of Chapultepec. A boulevard three miles in length, and two hundred feet in width; with double avenues of fine trees shading wide stone sidewalks; with seven great circles, each three hundred feet in diameter, breaking its long, level straightness, — it makes a fit setting for the brilliant display it holds. The