728 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



in the city of Mexico or in Europe, and intrust the management of 

 their property to a superintendent, who, like the owner, considers him- 

 self a gentleman, and whose chief business is to keep the peons in 

 debt, or, what is substantially the same thing, in slavery. Whatever 

 work is done is performed by the peons — in whose veins Indian blood 

 predominates — in their own way and in their own time. They have 

 but few tools, and, except possibly some contrivances for raising water, 

 nothing worthy the name of machinery. Without being bred to any 

 mechanical profession, the peons make and repair nearly every imple- 

 ment or tool that is used upon the estate, and this too without the use 

 of a forge or of iron, not even of bolts and nails. The explanation of 

 such an apparently marvelous result is to be found in a single word, 

 or rather material, raw-hide, with which the peon feels himself quali- 

 fied to meet almost any constructive emergency, from the framing of 

 a house to the making of a loom, the mending of a gun, or the re- 

 pair of a broken leg ; and yet even under these circumstances the 

 great Mexican estates, owing to their exemption from taxation, and 

 the cheapness of labor, are said to be profitable, and, in cases where a 

 fair supply of water is obtainable, to even return large incomes to their 

 absentee owners. 



In no truly Mexican house of high or low degree, from the adobe 

 hut of the peasant to the stone palace erected by the Emperor Itur- 

 bide, are there any arrangements for warming or, in the American 

 sense, for cooking ; and in the entire city of Mexico, with an esti- 

 mated population of from 225,000 to 500,000, chimneys, fireplaces, and 

 stoves are so rare that it is commonly said that there are none. 

 This latter statement is, however, not strictly correct ; yet it approxi- 

 mates so closely to the truth that, but for provision for warm baths, 

 there is probably no exception to it in any of the larger hotels of the 

 city where foreigners most do congregate. Apart from the capital 

 and some of the larger cities, Mexico is noticeably deficient in hotels 

 or inns for the accommodation of travelers, and in a majority of the 

 smaller towns there are no such places. And why should there be ? 

 The natives rarely go anywhere, and consequently do not expect any- 

 body to come to them. 



Large, costly, and often elegant stone edifices — public and private 

 — are not wanting in the principal towns and cities of Mexico ; but all, 

 save those of very recent construction, have the characteristic Sara- 

 cenic or Moorish architecture of Southern Spain — namely, a rectangu- 

 lar structure with rooms opening on to interior piazzas, and a more 

 or less spacious court-yard, which is often fancifully paved and orna- 

 mented with fountains and shrubbery ; while the exterior, with its 

 gate-furnished archways and narrow and iron-grated windows, sug- 

 gests the idea of a desire for jealous seclusion on the part of the in- 

 mates, or fear of possible outside attack and disturbance. Wooden 

 buildings are almost unknown in Mexico, and in all interiors wood is 



