Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/157

Rh the dancing took place in the beautiful hall of the State Congress of Jalisco—a Legislature, by-the-by, composed of but eleven members, a dangerously convenient number for the formation of a "ring"—which is hung with the portraits of all the early patriots of Mexico, and paintings and engravings of rare merit.

The hall and corridors were filled with as fine a company as could be gathered on the Continent, and with all due respect to my fair countrywomen, I must admit, that I never saw so many beautiful ladies at a ball of the same size in the United States. The ladies here usually make their own dresses—there is but one French milliner in this city of ninety thousand people—and exhibit a taste in the selection of materials and colors very rare with us. Light gauzes, green and white, blue and white, or red, green and white, contrasted, appear to be the favorite, and the dresses are cut low at the neck and with short sleeves. The temptation to bring out their brilliant black hair and lustrous eyes in strong contrast by the use of pearl powder and rouge, is often too strong for resistance with the belles of Guadalajara, but this feature is not more noticeable in one of their ball rooms than in one of our own. They all dance well, but their parties on public occasions are less enjoyable from the fact that introductions off-hand, are not in vogue as with us, and a stranger may roam around all the evening without making an acquaintance, save by chance.

When the guests had cleared the tables of the well-arranged collation, at 2, Señor Don Antonio Gomez Cuervo, Governor of Jalisco, a plain, honest, outspoken, and energetic man, whose vigorous and unceremonious shooting of brigands last winter got him