THE TRAIL OF THE CAVALIERS 



377 



as a rttrale or mounted policeman, som- 

 brero, pistols, spurs and all. 



The most striking feature of the 

 church architecture is its richness of 

 ornament, and this it owes to the Span- 

 ish architect, Cherriguera, by whose 

 name the prevailing style, a sort of Re- 

 naissance, is known. He flourished dur- 

 ing the latter half of the seventeenth 

 century, and it is from this period that 

 most of the Mexican church edifices 

 date, though there are to be found 

 many built a century earlier. Perhaps 

 in this antiquity lies the greater part of 

 their charm, or it may be in the fact 

 that they play so intimate a part in the 

 life of the people. The peasant kneels 

 upon the brim of his straw sombrero 

 upon the tesselated pavement, the high- 

 bred mantilla veiled senorita trips in 

 rustling black, across their courts, her 

 staid and sharp-eyed duenna laboring 

 behind. And everywhere is the parish 



out his journey upon one of the wiry 

 little Mexican horses. Of the dile- 

 gencias, once the universal means of 

 travel, few remain, but those few are 

 unchanged from what they were a cen- 

 tury ago, and in fact some of them, 

 from their antique structure and di- 

 lapidated appearance, might well be 

 over a hundred years in actual age. The 

 body is swung upon leather springs, and 

 wobbles in a way that brings one at 

 times in rather violent collision with 

 one's neighbor, a condition not always 

 to be desired in Mexico. It makes 

 fresh air on the driver's seat to be 

 preferable to traveling inside, although 

 the latter is technically considered first 

 class. 



I shall not soon forget the difficulty 

 in obtaining such a seat I had upon a 

 trip to Cuernavaca. Not that there 

 was not "plenty of room on top," but 

 my ticket called for first-class accom- 





IT 



The lumbering, old-fashioned diligence 



priest, a beneficent figure, genial and 

 much beloved, a worthy man withal. 



With the rapid increase of railways 

 throughout the Republic, the old meth- 

 ods of travel are disappearing. But 

 to penetrate to some distant ruin of 

 Aztec temple or Spanish monastery, one 

 must now and then resort to the lum- 

 bering old-fashioned diligence, or piece 



modations. These, I found, I was to 

 share with two fat senoras, of mixed 

 blood and more than doubtful ideals 

 upon the subject of cleanliness, and a 

 superannuated bullfighter, the latter 

 easily known by the little cue he wore, 

 tucked up under his flat brimmed hat. 

 My soul was filled with dismay, but it 

 was only when the happy thought oc- 



