Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/58

52 the buildings are of brick, with immensely thick walls, iron-latticed windows, and heavy wooden doors with curious antique iron locks, and flat, red-tiled roofs. Beyond the buildings, in all directions, towered the feathery cocoa palms and giant-leaved banana trees—or plants—of the rich gardens of Colima. Still back of them were the green, wooded mountains which surround this lovely Valley of Colima, with the great "Volcan de Colima," with a crown of dark smoke hanging over its crater, towering above all else, in the north-east. It was a scene worth half a life to look upon but once.

On the street the scene was less beautiful, but very picturesque and peculiar; not a carriage in sight. Little asses, loaded with green corn fodder, or carrying frames, in which were set on either side two large red earthen water jars, trotted along the long, straight, narrow streets. Men in broad hats and light Summer costume of white cotton or linen, trotted along on small, but spirited and richly saddled horses, and the common men and women of the country, on foot, filled the streets and sidewalks. All the marketing, except on Sunday when the great market is held, is done at an early hour, before the heat becomes annoying, and at sunrise the scene on the streets of Colima and all other Mexican towns, is most interesting. In the middle of the day the streets are almost deserted, and toward evening the visiting and fashionable promenading commences.

The principle dry goods and fancy stores are situated in the large buildings, with the portals fronting on the plazas, and the sidewalks are, during a considerably portion of the day, given up to small traders, who spread their little stock of cheap jewelry, slippers, watches, cigaritos, knives, swords, and a thousand