AN ECONOMIC STUDY OF MEXICO. 725 



erson, that " the eye sees only what it brings to itself the power to 

 see " ; and the majority of those who in recent years have visited 

 Mexico would seem to have brought to their eyes the power of seeing 

 little else than the picturesque side of things. And of such material 

 there is no lack. In the first place, the country throughout is far 

 more foreign to an American than any country of Europe, except that 

 part of Europe in close proximity to its Asiatic border. Transport a 

 person of tolerably good geographical information, without giving hira 

 any intimation as to where he was going, to almost any part of the 

 great plateau of Mexico — outside of the larger cities — and he would at 

 once conclude that he was either at Timbuctoo or some part of the 

 " Holy Land." The majority of the houses are of adobe (mud), desti- 

 tute of all coloration, unless dust-gray is a color, and one storj' in 

 height. In Palestine, however, and also (according to report) in Tim- 

 buctoo, the roofs are " domed " ; in Mexico they are flat. The soil is 

 dry, the herbage, when there is any, coarse and somber, and the 

 whole country singularly lacking in trees and verdure. In the fields 

 of the better portions of the country, men may be seen plowing with 

 a crooked stick, and raising water from wells or ditches into irrigating 

 trenches, by exactly the same methods that are in use to-day as they 

 were five thousand years ago or more upon the banks of the Nile. In 

 the villages, women with nut-brown skins, black hair, and large black 

 eyes, walk round in multitudinous folds of cotton fabrics, often colored, 

 the face partially concealed, and gracefully bearing water-jars upon 

 their shoulders — the old familiar Bible picture of our childhood over 

 again, of Rebecca returning from the fountain. 



Place a range of irregular, sharp, saw-tooth hills or mountains, 

 upon whose sides neither grass nor shrub has apparently ever grown, 

 in the distance ; a cloudless sky and a blazing sun overhead ; and in 

 the foreground a few olive-trees, long lines of repellent cacti defining 

 whatever of demarkation may be needed for fields or roadway, and a 

 few donkeys, the type of all that is humble and forlorn — and the pict- 

 ure of village life upon the " plateau " of Mexico is complete. 



Would any one recall the ''^Flight of the Holy Family into 

 Egypt," it is not necessary to visit the galleries of Europe and study 

 the works of the old masters, for here on the dusty plains of Mexico 

 all the scenes and incidents of it are daily repeated : Mary upon a don- 

 key, her head gracefully hooded with a blue rebozo, and carrying a 

 young child enveloped on her bosom in her mantle ; while Joseph, the 

 husband, bearded and sun-sorched, with naked arms and legs, and san- 

 dals on his feet, walks ploddingly by her side, with one hand on the 

 bridle, and, if the other does not grasp a staff, it is because of the 

 scarcity of wood out of which to make one, or because the dull beast 

 stands in constant need of the stimulus of a thong of twisted leather, 



Madame Calderon de la Barca, the Scotch wife of one of the first 

 Spanish ministers sent to Mexico after the achievement of her inde- 



