Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/67

Every room has a great hinged window opening to the floor, and entering directly on these airy, shaded balconies. Over the casements and corridors leading to the state apartments, elaborate carvings ornament the heavy stone trimmings; and projecting from the flat roof, with long gutter pipes of metal protruding from their grinning mouths, a row of grotesque gargoyles, of great size and striking artistic effect, surround the four sides. Other arches open in three directions on other courts, and broad stone stairways lead to the upper stories. The rooms, opening usually by one great balconied window on the street, as well as on the inner courts, were large, charmingly cool, well furnished, and scrupulously clean; the beds, which frightened us at first, being laid Mexican fashion on two-inch planks for springs, vindicated themselves by giving nights of restful sleep; and the chambermaids, who were all chamber men, were the most helpful, kindly, attentive, delightful set, without any exception, it was ever our happy lot to know. We had grown used to the usual American article, who answers the bell with the look of a martyr, and does your bidding with the air of a churl; who sourly fills the letter