OVER THE BORDER 195 



As for the city itself, it is squalid, but well 

 worth a visit ; having so strange and other-world- 

 ish a look that one seems to have crossed at least 

 an ocean rather than a trickling streamlet. The 

 white church ; the little shops, with their curious 

 wares; the game cocks in the street, tethered 

 each by a yard of cord to a peg driven into the 

 ground on the edge of the sidewalk, crowing de- 

 fiance to each other, and regarded proudly by 

 their owners, who now and then take them up 

 in their arms, caressing them fondly, or shaking 

 one in the face of another, to see the feathers of 

 their necks bristle ; the bust of Bonito Juarez 

 in the fenced plaza, the bust itself of a size to 

 adorn a parlor mantel, while the marble pedestal 

 is ten or fifteen feet high and at least ten feet 

 square at the base ; the Spanish signboards and 

 placards ; best of all, the people themselves, men, 

 women, and children — the children, some of 

 them, half naked, even on a cold, windy forenoon, 

 while the men saunter about, or lean against 

 an adobe wall in the sun, wrapped in thick, 

 bright-colored blankets (I shall think of a Mexi- 

 can, as long as I live, as leaning against the side 

 of a house) — all these go to make a memor- 

 able picture for a Yankee on his travels. 



