Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/180

 170 The ride from Zumpango to Guatitlan, where this story began, is very pretty. The haciendas grow frequent; cattle fill the fields; grains are being harvested; and some fields, well irrigated, look wondrous green. The acres are lowly, and often wet. Great herds of cattle and horses are grazing in the drier meadows, while the huge snow-mountains rise higher than ever before from this half-watery base. Iztaccihuatl is more beautiful than from any other position. Both that and Popocatepetl are grand diamonds, flashing solid light in that sun-bright sky. What other fields of earth have such a guardianship?

As we enter the town, it seems certain that it must be an American summer village. Trees line the roadside, lustrous in July verdure; fields equally lovely lie behind the trees; flowers blossom on the wayside. What better place possible to spend a night? Alas! for the vanity of human expectations. The street is busy, and the two boys who are driving our mules, well loaded with pulqui (the boys, not the mules), are greeted by another, more loaded, if possible, than they. He misdirected us; but hung round for his medio, or half a real (six and a quarter cents), till the foot almost followed the voice in ejecting him. The Hotel San Pedro admits us to its ample yard, and that is about all.

Not to disappoint you, when Rosecrans's railroad takes you to this hard-named city, let us take you now to its chief hotel. Imagine a square yard, three hundred feet across. Around it are one-story, low-roofed sheds of adobe. At its entrance is a small fonda, or restaurant. On its rear are some steps going up to a second-story veranda, low-browed and wide, on which are six small rooms, with brick floors and bare bedsteads, with a chair, a table, and a bench as their furniture.

There are the quarters for fastidious guests, the first-class cars for unseasoned Yankees. They are remote from the house, if house that single room can be called which provides your meals alone; and they are easily assailable by any body in the spacious yard, and there are many bodies there. A range of huge mule wagons is backed along the rear of the yard, just under our