Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/184

174 them now the horse-car flies, the ass tugs under his big and bulky burden, the peon toils under his relatively bigger and more bulky loads. The whole broad avenue is full of life, while by its side stalks the majestic aqueduct, a Roman legion slow marching into Rome. It is as artistic a line of beauty as ever strode along a busy city pathway. It brings the Chapultepec waters to the town, an old fashioned water-way, but far grander than our modern counterpart of hidden pipes and siphons.

The Tivoli gardens open on this avenue, and just below the terminus of the aqueduct. There we pause for a breakfast, amidst foliage, birds, and summer delights. This is a favorite resort for out-of-door dinner-parties, and has every conceit for such tastes—bowers, boxes, and even tables up in the trees. We can there eat, and chatter like and with the birds. That is high living, at not very high prices. Try it when you go to Mexico. The few deciduous trees are putting forth fresh foliage, and every thing is lovely. How lovely! Oh, that grace and goodness kept step with nature! Where do they? In you?

The perilous journey of sixty to seventy miles is passed without peril, and a new and pleasant chapter added to the book of experience.