Chap. IX. CHARACTER OF LANDSCAPE. 329 
are one-storied houses, the flat roofs of which project, and 
are supported by rough columns. Above these tower the 
bare summits of the adjacent mountain chain. Under this 
primitive piazza women sit and offer onions, beans, chile, 
fresh and dried fruits, &c, &c, for sale. All are dear, 
which seems a strange contrast to the poverty of the place. 
But every family grows what it needs, and, as a whole day 
may pass before some traveller or North American trader 
may appear to purchase the half-dozen eggs or single melon, 
which have constituted a poor woman's whole stock, the 
value of her time must be added to that of the goods. But 
such is the case almost everywhere in Spanish America. 
The gardens and fields of El Paso are well irrigated 
from the river. Nothing could be grown here without 
this resource ; the vineyards even, and orchards, being 
dependent on this artificial supply. The ground is there- 
fore everywhere intersected by acequias, which spread fer- 
tility through and around the town. The exquisite climate, 
at the level of 3800 feet above the sea, and these environs 
of cultivated land, contrasting forcibly in their vivid green 
with the grey alluvial hills and rocky mountain crests, 
impart to the place a charm peculiar to all the scenery of 
Northern Mexico, which has something of the Levantic or 
North African character. 
Better dwellings and a safe neighbourhood would make 
El Paso a delightful abode, although German taste in 
scenery would find little that was familiar and homelike. 
For those who prefer verdure, masses of foliage, and that 
pearly vapour which characterises our northern landscapes, 
the atmosphere here would be too transparent, the skies too 
darkly blue and metallic, the beauty of the bleak moun- 
tains too severe and plastic, and, above all, the lack of 
verdure too apparent. I remarked this last circumstance 
