of maguey, its scattered houses, that look like the beaux restes of better days, its market-place, parish church, church of El Carmen, with the Mona tery and high-walled gardens adjoining; with its narrow lanes, Indian huts, profusion of pink roses, little bridge and avenue, and scattered clusters of trees; its houses for temperamento (constitution, as they call those where Mexican families come to reside in summer), with their grated windows, and gardens and orchards. And then the distant view of Mexico, with the cathedral towers, volcanoes, and lofty mountains, scattered churches and long lines of trees; and nearer, the pretty villages of Coyohuacan and Miscuaque; and everywhere the old church, the broken arch, the ancient cross with its faded flower-garlands to commemorate a murder, or erected as an act of piety—all is so characteristic of Mexico, that the landscape could belong to no other part of the known world.
There is the Indian with his blanket, extracting the pulque from the maguey; the ranchero, with her reboso and broad-brimmed hat, passing by upon her ass; the old lépero, in rags, sitting basking in the sun upon the stone seat in front of the door; the poor Indian woman, with matted hair and brown baby hanging behind her, refreshing herself by drinking three clacos (halfpence) worth of pulque from a jarrito (little earthen jar); the portly and well-looking padre prior del Carmen (the Carmelite prior), sauntering up the lane at a leisurely pace, all the little ragged boys, down to the merest urchin that can hardly lisp, dragging off their large, well-holed
