The Arizona sentinel., 1886-08-14
AT SANTA ANITA.
Sunday Spent at the Pleasure Resort of
 the City of Mexico.

4 Sunday Spent at the Pleasure Resort of
 the City of Mexico.
 Santa Anita, the first village on the Viga beyond the City of Mexico, is the universal rallying point on Sundays, both for natives and sight-seekers from the capitol. There is always q fiesta at Santa Anita, and the Indians are for ever fandangoing, pulque-drinking and ballad-singing. 0 On arriving at this village, the first business of every body is to secure wreath of peoples and corn-fowers, which the women wear upon their tangled hair and the men upon their sombreros- though, perhaps, the shuman form divine" thus beauti- fully crowned may be but partially cov- cred with scant and dirty rags. Lovely wreaths sell for a mGdjO (SiX cents) apiece; and the woman, young or old, who is not wreathed before the day is over is either deep in disgrace or hope lessly out of fashion. This innate love of flowers is a direct heritarge from the swarthy founders of the float ing gardens. History tells us that the most valuable gift which Montezuma presented to the Spanish ambassadors who came to his court, was accompanied by rare bouquet-and a strange anomaly it must have seemed, the love of the beau tiful combined with their blood-curdling religion! Baron von Humboldt re- marked upon the same peculiarity cen turies afterward, and so have other writers on Mexico. To-day those who sit in the market-places must embower themselves in green branches garlanded with flowers. while some prOshic pulque barrels are wreathed with roses. and mugs and pitchers are similarly adorned. The Toorest village church has its floor strewn with blossoms, and fresh bou- quets are always arranged upon the altars before services begin. The babe at its christening, the child at its confir- nation, the bride at her wedding and the corpse in its coffin are alike adorned
 At the Indian village next above Santa Anita is rare old church, wh oh was built by Cortez more than three hundred years ago, but is still in daily use It is well worth visit, and if the doors chance to be closed, a few cents will induce the custodian (who lives conveniently near) to produce the key and reveal all its treasures of antique ugliness. In the rear is a weed grown grave yard with rows of grinning skulls ranged along the arms of its central cross, which is surrounded by the usual heap of human bones. In front of the church, facing the plaza fountain where the women collect with the r water jars and finger to gossip, as even Indian women will-are several blue-painted adobe tombs. The vaults are mostly empty, except few moldy bits of coffin Gas any one may see by looking in), but each is graced by the owner s .kull and cross-bones, placed carefully on top. There IS something charmingly grotesque in the idea that these long-dead folk have come out to ~atch the little world they left, and listsfi to the endless gossip at the fountaiI;; and each eyeless ''dome of thought" seems to wear a cheerful grin, as if apprec ating the situation
 Nothing more picturesque can be imagined than the evening home-com- ing down the Viga-the happy-hearted natives singing or shore or in their