Page:Six Months In Mexico.pdf/173

Rh ; they are your servants, and their house is yours for the time being, but the main causes are the gradual decrease of their once princely fortunes, and their laziness; the latter I regard, from close observation, as the chief fault.

Yet with all their retired habits they retain the "custom" of former generations as to how their parlor must be arranged and visits paid and received, as strictly as though they were in the midst of an ultra society circle; their customs, I have been informed, are thoroughly Spanish and are the only ones practiced both in Spain and Cuba.

The sala is always on the second floor, as none but servants occupy the ground or first floor, and it is generally the only room in the house which boasts of a carpet. In several cases I have seen the floors made of polished wood and marble tiling; the walls are beautifully frescoed in colors, and the ceiling, which is always very high, has a magnificent painting in the center, the subject invariably of angels or a group of scantily-clad females. In each corner there are round, brass-edged openings of about ten inches in circumference, which serve as ventilators and very often a double purpose by letting scorpions in on unwilling victims.

The windows are but glass doors opening out upon little iron-railed balconies shaded by awnings. Each window-shade is transparent, and as the light shines through, it not only fills the room with some beautiful delicate tints, but discloses a lovely Southern scene. Cobweby curtains of creamy white hang from brass poles, suspended at least a foot and a half from the window, forming in themselves little nooks which would be idolized by romantically inclined "spoons" and "spooners" of the States.

The Mexicans are all good judges of paintings and many are talented artists; they do not harrow up one's sensibilities with dollar daubs of blue-trees, lavender tinted skies and a mammoth animal with horns and tail, standing on a white streak in the foreground, which (the animal) placed cross-wise, could stand on all fours and never touch water. Nor does one's eyes have to long for the waters of Lethe because of tea prizes and Mikado