Page:Notes of the Mexican war 1846-47-48.djvu/415

Rh chiefly of the cactus order, with beautiful masses of purple, yellow and crimson flowers, while the heliotrope and sweet pea could be seen on every hand, and made the air along the National road heavy with their perfume. We also passed, and sometimes quartered for the night at several large haciendas. A hacienda is the same as a large country-seat or farm house in our States. Each hacienda, or in fact most all large haciendas in this country have a main entrance through which guests, donkeys and carts alike find ingress. To this entrance is a large, heavy gate with strong hinges and heavy bolts, something like our prison gates. The first floor is mostly laid with bricks or small flagstone, and looks as cold as a tombstone. In each room there are plenty of chairs, and in the middle of the room there is a table loaded with glass lamps and numerous vases. In the corner is the water jar and bowls of native pottery from Cholula, dark red, with strange figures painted upon them. In almost every room can be seen numbers of the all-prevailing faith, in crosses and pictured saints, image of the Virgin, and a blood-stained image of Christ in perpetual crucifixion, before which young and old daily tell their beads and whisper their prayers.

The city of Puebla is getting to be quite a lively place of business again. It begins to look old-fashioned; that is as it looked before the main army left for the city of Mexico. New faces are daily to be seen, and places that were almost deserted a few months ago have now become resorted to by the better class of citizens; where then, no one, neither a Mexican soldier or American dared to go, except the numerous Mexican soldiery. In places that were largely intermixed with guerillas and bad men of all descriptions, we can now see smiling and apparently contented faces. The business men who had to close their stores or shops for fear of being robbed by their own countrymen, come out now in the evening to ride or walk as best suits their convenience, without the fear of being molested or their places broken open and robbed, and themselves reduced to the necessity of commencing life anew. On