Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/92

90 their little fires of mesquite on the floors of their huts, and ignore chimneys. The city seems alive with humanity. In open window and balcony, in door and arch way, in plaza and lane and court- yard, the every-day numbers are increased threefold, and the houses have emptied themselves into the streets. The larger shops, being principally conducted by French or Germans, are closed; but the native tiendas, the markets, the cantines and pulquerias, and the omnipresent candaleria are widely open. After mass in the morning is the approved time for shopping among the Indians. The man buys his new sandals, and the woman her new veil; and around each purchaser gather the sisters, the brothers, the uncles, and the cousins, to barter, to haggle, and to enjoy the dear delight of bargaining. Now and again the dark funeral cars pass on the way to the cemetery, — a new treatment of an old subject to which one does not easily grow accustomed. A coffin on an open horse-car, with the traditional bravado of the driver thinly diluted to a weak show of respect by a weed on a plug hat; and a more or less indifferent crowd in the covered cars behind, including every grade of grief, from that of simple acquaintance