Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 2.djvu/638

leagues farther;) and from thence to Zăcătēcăs a succession of steep ascents and descents announces the vicinity of one of the minor branches of the Sierra Madre. The town itself is not visible until you arrive within half a league of the entrance, when you see it below you, following the direction of a deep barranca, (ravine,) of which the mountain called La Buffa, with a chapel situated upon its curiously-crested summit, forms one side. The streets are narrow, and from the want of a good police, defiled with the remains of the "Matanzas," frequent in Zacatecas, where a great quantity of tallow is made. They swarm, too, with tribes of dirty children, whose appearance, like that of their squalid parents, is by no means prepossessing. But the distant view of the town is fine, from the number of churches and convents rising proudly above the other buildings; there are several excellent houses too in the vicinity of the great Plaza, where we were lodged, and the market before our windows presented both a busy, and a curious scene. It was abundantly supplied with fish, particularly "Bagre," (a large Tierra Caliente fish without scales,) as well as with vegetables and fruits. The quantity of Chile disposed of was really prodigious; waggons laden with it, drawn each by six oxen, were arriving hourly from Aguas Calientes, yet their contents rapidly disappeared, piles of Capsicum sufficient to excoriate the palates of half London vanishing in the course of a few minutes.