FIRST IMPRESSIONS 



glittering, sun-possessed day succeeded an- 

 other. We sat on the gallery and gazed 

 upon the street below, upon Mexicans with 

 gay-striped blankets, ranchmen coming in 

 with farm produce or to ' exchange the time 

 of day,' visiting invalids wandering aimlessly. 

 Or we paced the sandy and too often odori- 

 ferous streets, passing the commonplace and 

 home-like American stores without interest, 

 but observing and endeavouring to translate 

 the signs over the Mexican stores as an 

 initiatory attempt at learning what we still 

 fondly believed to be a language. Once was 

 pressed upon the prospective housekeeper a 

 Mexican butcher's English circular, by which 

 it appeared that he offered his customers 

 ' a kind and delicate treatment and prompt 

 despatch of business.' Here and there, 

 coming into view at the far end of a street 

 of flat - roofed houses, casting clear - cut 

 shadows on the glaring sand, was, surely, 

 a glimpse of Old Spain. White turreted 

 buildings, one above the other, a back- 

 ground of near, olive-tinted mountain, a sky 

 of purest turquoise or sapphire, according to 

 the light. True, the turrets were but the 



