Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 1.djvu/51

22 sundry pictures of saints, parrots and battles; and there a cigar shop with a slender, black-eyed girl behind the counter, hold enough and handsome enough, even without the red rose in her hair, to tempt St. Anthony. Observe the evangelista, or public letter-writer, with two quills and an inkstand ready on his little desk under a canopy of straw matting; and observe, too, that lépero with his back against a donkey's pannier, robbing the pannier while he pretends to be buying a knife.

Priests in long shovel hats; lousy soldiers in ragged, ill fitting uniforms; gaudy officers chatting and smoking; jugglers with snakes and balls; cynical dandies retailing love affairs; half-naked léperos in the corners sleeping OH their pulque; lottery venders With long strings of tickets; sellers of flowers, toys, candy, glass, wax-work, mock jewellery, cheap cutlery, and a thousand other things; closed carriages taking ladies to church; more beggars and still more—these and many other sights keep us too busy for reflection; but we cannot help noticing that seven out of ten persons are social drones or parasites, and that vice of one sort or another dims the face and weakens the step of almost every one. Suddenly a light bell tinkles, and the crowd is instantly grave and still. "God is coming," they whisper, or in other words the viatic is going to a sick man. A coach drawn by two mules and followed by a dozen slovenly friars holding lighted candles and chanting, comes slowly down a street, All uncover and kneel, and we must do likewise or very likely get a pummelling.

This reminds us of duty; and, electing the cathedral in preference to sixty other churches, we enter. Before us is a great throng, chiefly women and léperos, of most devout worshippers. The finest ladies in the city are here, dressed all in black, With no ornaments except a silk mantilla, edged with lace, and a high tortoise—shell comb; and they kneel humbly beside the drudge or the beggar. The church itself—designed in the Spanish style, which places the choir in the middle of the have and a balustraded walk between that and the great altar—with a cloud of incense filling the air and many hundreds of candles gleaming murkily from the shrines, is most mysterious and impressive. The gorgeousness of the sacred ornaments amazes us. Literally tons of silver are in