Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/387

Rh Como no” (Yes sir; why not?") and then went on to say that all the days were beautiful as a general thing; only now and then a norther making it otherwise. The fact is, that the weather is so generally beautiful, and the exceptions so rare, that the words we use so often every week in our changeable climate, have no appreciable meaning to the dwellers in this favored clime.



The belief in the "evil eye," a superstition of purely Eastern origin, is quite common among the lower classes of the Mexican people. Many times I have seen a poor Mexican mother standing by the roadside, with her young infant in her arms, and on observing one of our party looking towards her, draw the end of her rebosa quickly over the face of the child, lest its fortunes should be blighted and its soul imperiled by the glance of the stranger. The superstition is confined solely to the lower class of the people, but it manifests itself exactly as it does in Arabia and the Barbary States to this day, and evidently came to America with the Spaniards. It is customary in all Spanish American countries to offer a guest everything which he may require for his.