Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/536

528 their way down from the hills. Aside from deep gutters that cross the main thoroughfares, heaps of filth and refuse obstruct the way, making the city, as it appeals to at least two senses, the sight and smell, more objectionable even than the city of Mexico. The houses are low and massive, of the style of architecture that prevails in all Spanish cities in Mexico, with walls of stone and grated windows. In situation, the city is superb, commanding the three grand and glorious valleys; and perhaps, under the administration of General Diaz, it may attain to the acme of healthfulness and beauty which its situation, five thousand feet above the sea, and its climate, should give it.

The place most sought by us when in the city was the plaza in front of the municipal palace, which, on Saturdays, was the resort of the various Indian tribes living among the hills, who came in and took undisputed possession of it and the adjacent portales. The Mexican market-place has been described by me in previous chapters, but I cannot refrain from again alluding to the portales, which usually surround it. If there were any that surpassed those of Oaxaca in length and symmetry, I think those of Yucatan are entitled to honorable mention. Beneath these arcades the affairs of the huckster and small dealer are generally carried on in the morning; at noon their shade tempts the town vagabond to slumber there, and at night they afford a lurking place for the evil-minded lepero.

The most famous building here of recent times is the Institute of Oaxaca, in which college were educated Diaz, Romero, Juarez, Mariscal, and many other Mexicans who have had a widely extended reputation. It exercises its beneficial influence over five hundred students, and the natural result of it is shown by an enumeration in the city alone of over seventy lawyers and seventeen doctors. In the library of the Institute are fourteen thousand volumes, some of note and rarity, principally the spoils of the suppressed conventual establishments of the State, The favored students wander about cool corridors, and in a neat little garden in the patio, where are several objects of Indian antiquity, a harpy eagle, and brilliant macaws, which lend an added interest to this spot, made sacred to Mexican youth by