Page:Pictures of life in Mexico Vol 1.djvu/45

Rh The floor was black, the ceiling was black, and the walls were black; so were the fleas, the skins, and the arms; the dead aloe, the crucifix, and the pan of beans, were blackening; the cot with the sacking bottom, the saddle, and the pictures were dark with dirt; and the tarnished glory round the heads of the saints loomed out in a greenish half-light from the surrounding obscurity. In short, a coating of dirt encrusted everything.

Such was the room in which I did not sleep; though the landlord was greatly surprised that any objection could be started against such quarters,—and it was not without a very stormy debate that he could be prevailed upon to grant me any other.

Beggary is a profession—by far the most universal one in the city of Mexico. I had before seen it in great force in other districts, and had heard much of its prevalence in the capital; but I certainly was not prepared for such a tumultuous exhibition of mendicity as I beheld next morning from the window of my apartment. A good-natured and remarkably shy-looking old gentleman, with a short white beard and a much lighter complexion than ordinary, was attempting to cross the court-