1892 
Tlalpam 
(Mexico) 
the cars, I joined the throng, A broad road leads from the city- 
straight out to the hill of the Virgin, It was thronged with wayfar¬ 
ers, on foot with numerous raule carts loaded to overflowing, These 
were covered with a tilt bub from under the lifted edges many bright 
eyes peered out at the lively scene as they rumbled slowly along. 
Everyone had the gay air of a holiday maker and jokes and laughter 
f 
were heard on all sides. These pilgrims were dressed in their holiday 
best,- the men in snowy white relieved usually by brilliantly-colored 
scrapes. At the border of the village of Guadalupe all teams are 
stopped and thenoe on one 1ms to work a slow passage through a dense 
but good-natured mass of people. The town was decorated with colored 
cloths, etc., hanging from windows and the main street extending about 
the base of the hill, on the brow of which is perched the chapel, or 
shrine of the Virgin, is filled with booths, for the sale of sweet¬ 
meats, icecream made from snow of the volcano, small eating booths, 
peep-shows, a merry-go-round with its hand organ, numerous sellers of 
holy pictures consisting of glaring chroaos of the Virgin and other 
personages, venders of silver jewelry of barbaric patterns with hosts 
of the little silver images of various parts of the human frame or of 
domestic animals to be used to hang ou the dresses of the saint or 
Virgin to whom prayers are made for relief. 
Around the foot of the hill and about the church, wherever a nook 
offered shelter from the crowd, were Indian women squatting about little 
fires cooking for their families,- the small array of clay pots about 
them showing that they had brought along all of their household goods. 
Scattered everywhere in the crowd squatted other women with a small, 
clay brasier in which burned a charcoal fire before them, over which 
they made, oooked, and sold various peppery dishes dear to the hearts 
of these people. 
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