Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/285

 Rh stall is, is a dead wall against the street. The court side is built up four feet of stone and plaster. Every few feet round pillars, eighteen inches through, rise from this wall to support the roof, which depends courtward, leaving the stall higher at the horse's head, and thus giving him air. The space between the stone wall and the top of the pillars which support the roof is left open, thus securing constant ventilation. The horses are not stalled in here as in their boxes in the North, and as men are in oyster saloons. All the space is open from end to end. There is ample room behind them and around them, and air as good as a pasture affords. It seems to me a great improvement on our narrow-boarded stalls, without liberty and without air. The mules and horses are so tethered that they can not disturb each other, and yet the whole stable and court is as sweet and wholesome as an orchard. Here, too, we note another peculiarity in the building of the stone walls. They make a science of this here, for stone is an incumbrance of the land as much as in New England, or as trees are in Wisconsin. They put them into fences which beat New England's "all hollow." They make these walls very high—six to eight feet, and very broad—three to five. They put the small stones at the bottom, and not less than four feet up. Then they put on the big rocks. These big stones overlap the base with their rough edges, and make the wall look like a trim lad with a huge, tall, ragged sombrero. The lower half is very compact and comely; the upper very rough, yet strong. This is probably a protection, for the rough tall top stones are not so easily surmounted or dismounted. Where these are not sufficiently defensive, thorns are thrust into the upper tier to keep the robbing boys and men from the inclosed gardens. Sometimes they build the walls lower and of Yankee fashion, and once I saw them reduced to our narrow meanness of a single row of stones; but that wall was nearly all down, and soon disappeared, leaving the field open to every beast and boy. The only walls that were walls were the handsome structures built after the sombrero pattern.

The landscape lies rich and warm all the next posta to Venta