Page:The Story of Mexico.djvu/437

Rh the very best of all the bananas. Let not the wanderer from the north be surprised to find it is, according to his estimation, far gone in decay. The natives eat bananas only dead ripe, when they are beginning to grow soft,—not as they are found in the northern market, hard and indigestible after a long voyage without ripening influences. Hens and chickens are straying about, and a tough old rooster, tied by the leg, awaits the pot, after his purchaser shall have been found.

You select such little heaps of fruit as please your inexperienced eye; a small cargador, all eyes and teeth, springs up from the earth at your feet, with a big loose basket on his back. Every thing you buy is tumbled into it; he follows you from stall to stall, accumulating such treasures as you select. You will not be able to resist several specimens of native pottery. This is generally spread out on the ground, while the vendor sits behind it. Manufacture of coarse pottery is carried on everywhere, and different regions have their distinctive varieties, influenced by different colored clays and methods of treatment. The ware of Guadalajara is perhaps the most esteemed; it is of a soft gray in tint, polished but not glazed, and often delicately decorated with color and gold. But every village has its characteristic pottery, simple in form, pleasing in color, and although the pots and jugs are so fragile that it is hopeless to think of packing them securely, it is impossible to resist their attractions compared with the trifling sum demanded for them.

The basket of your cargador, well filled with fruit