1828.] " Mexico ;" and " Mexican Illustrations" 591 



The theatre is described as a neat building, but wretchedly furnished 

 with performers ; and horribly offensive, from the fumes of tobacco with 

 which it was filled. When the author, however, was last there, the 

 cigars were given up by the ladies in the boxes. The airing of the Ala- 

 meda, which is a more favourite species of diversion, is described with 

 great spirit and neatness in the second volume of Mr. Ward from whom 

 we extract it : 



" Amongst the many curious scenes that Mexico presented at the end of 

 1823, I know none with which we were more struck than the Alameda. As 

 compared with the Prado of Madrid, it was, indeed, deprived of its brightest 

 ornament, the women ; for few or none of the ladies of Mexico ever appear 

 in public on foot ; but, to compensate this, it had the merit of being totally 

 unlike any thing that we had ever seen before. On a Sunday, or Dia de Fiesta, 

 the avenues were crowded with enormous coaches, mostly without springs, 

 but very highly varnished, and bedizened with extraordinary paintings in lieu 

 of arms, in each of which were seated two or more ladies, dressed in full even- 

 ing costume, and whiling away the time with a cigar en attendant the approach 

 of some of the numerous gentlemen walking or riding near. Nor were the 

 equestrians less remarkable ; for most of them were equipped in the full 

 riding-dress of the country, differing only from that worn by the lower orders 

 in the richness of the materials. When made up for display in the Capital, 

 it is enormously expensive. In the first place, the hind-quarters of the horse 

 are covered with a coating of leather (called the anquera,), sometimes stamped 

 and gilt, and sometimes curiously wrought, but always terminating in a fringe 

 or border of little tags of brass, iron, or silver, which make a prodigious jing- 

 ling at every step. The saddle, which is of a piece with the anquera, and is 

 adorned in a similar manner, rises before into an inlaid pommel, to which, in 

 the country, the lasso is attached ; while the plated headstall of the bridle is 

 connected by large silver ornaments with the powerful Arabic bit. Fur is 

 sometimes used for the anquera ; arid this, when of an expensive kind (as 

 black bear-skin or otter-skin), and embroidered, as it generally is, with broad 

 stripes of gold and silver, makes the value of the whole apparatus amount to four 

 or five hundred dollars (about 100/). A common leather saddle costs from fifty 

 to eighty dollars. The horse usually mounted on these occasions must be a 

 brazeador, fat, sleek, and slow, but with remarkably high action before; 

 which, it is- thought, tends to shew off both the animal and the rider to the 

 greatest advantage. The tout ensemble is exceedingly picturesque; and the 

 public walks of Mexico will lose much in point of effect, when the riding- 

 dress of England or France is substituted, as it probably will be, for a national 

 costume of so very peculiar a character." 



In the midst, however, of all this costliness and splendour, an incon- 

 ceivable mass of misery is found among the lower orders : and the Lazza- 

 roni population, Mr. Ward says, at the end of 1823, rendered the suburbs 

 of the capital almost too horrible for foreigners to enter : 



" Twenty thousand of these Leperos infested, at that time, the streets, exhi- 

 biting a picture of wretchedness to which no words can do justice. In addi- 

 tion to the extraordinary natural ugliness of the Indian race, particularly when 

 advanced in years, all that the most disgusting combination of dirt and rags 

 could do to increase it was done. Dress they had none : a blanket full of holes 

 for the man, and a tattered petticoat for the woman, formed the utmost extent 

 of the attire of each ; and the display of their persons, which was the natural 

 consequence of the scarcity of raiment, to a stranger was really intole- 

 rable." 



By a strange dispensation, these wretched people, in the depth 

 of all their degradation, possess some faculties which should seem 



