Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-04-24
HOMES IN MEXICO,
rlcTURESoUENEss VERSUS LACK OF
VENTILATION AND DRAINAGE.

The Pleasures OF Life Behind Adobe
WaIls-Floors and Ceilings-A Great
Lack of Household Conveniences-Sev-
eral Very Serious Drawbacks.
Let US penetrate within an average dwell
ing With the door knocker we waken the
echoes, and the hall porter lazily arises from
the sheepskin stretched on the stone flags
within-sometimes his downy couch is the
soft side of plank by way of variety-and
comes to take peep at Us. Perhaps he looks
through little wicket, or, if this is wanting,
he opens the door a hands breadth, further
intrusion being prevented by a heavy chain
hooked from one post to the other. If we
are genie decente-the right sort of people
we are admitted. The arched tunnel like en-
trance way has on one side stationary form
of masonry or movable settee, and on tho
other opens the porter's lodge, where he and
bis family live, and very likely carry on in
the one room tailoring, bookbinding or some
other trade, as does the French concierge
Very often an elaborate iron gate of scroll
work at the inner extreme of the zaguan
affords an additional protection against
thieves, mad dogs, wild cattle or other
marauders Beyond this is the gradrangular
court or patio, on which as a general rule
all the living roolEs open. Often one side at
least is skirted by an arched portal or CORR
dor, very pleasant and ample for family
gatherings especially in the tropics, where
this is the favorite rendezvous of the house
hold During the day it is shaded by can
vas curtains, which are often wetted to pro-
mote GOODNESS, as are also the flags of the
pavement. Here goes on sewing, reading,
games or what not. These corridors are
often given a mural decoration of painting,
representing orange trees, pot plants, vines
climbing over lattice work, and similar OBJ
jects, while at the rear of the patio, masking
the inferior Zaguan, a screen of masonry is
painted to carry out the perspective.
Opening upon the patio, light is generally
supplied to rooms in Mexican houses through
half sashed doors rather than windows,
which, except Oh the facade, are seldom seen,
save, perhaps, curious little openings of oval,
circular trefoil or other odd shapes, grated
rather than glazed. The doors open from
the middle, each leaf being glazed in its up
Per half, in the more pretentious dwellings,
and they are secured by upper and lower
bolts, the latter, high up, provided with
rings and chains for drawing them. The in
ner jarnbs are fitted with projecting castings,
affording recess on either side, into which
fold snugiy away paneled solid shutters,
which, with lid to drop down over the
transom, where transom exists, exclude the
light SO completely as to beautify the so
journing amateur photographer, who finds
his dark room ready made, without the adj
ventitious aid of blankets and such contrap-
lions. Padlocks, large and solid are in high
favor for securing house doors, or else locks
of massive design, with keys foot or more
long and heavy enough TO serve as q weapon
most offensive. The door knobs are gener-
ally not door knobs at all, but queer little
curlicue shaped brass handles, and all the
metal fittings seem wonderfully quaint and
clumsy by comparison with the trim finish
Go which the American eye is accustomed.
Floors are almost always, save in the ma
tional capital, of red brick tiles, square, hex
agonal or oblong, sometimes painted in pat
terms; those of halls and corridors are often
stone tagged, and the rare ones of wood are
known, at least in the interior, as American
floors" The interior walls are generally
painted in distemper, paneled, dadoed and
friezed, often decorated with an all over de
sign in stencil. The ceilings ara fourteen to
twenty feet above the floor, and few indeed
are the rooms outside the City of Mexico
wherein the rafters are not conspicuous,
crossed by the layers, row after row, now of
cane, now of small sticks or brush, now Of
shades, close laid, which support the earth
and mortar, foot to yard thick, which con
stitute the fat roof These rafters, called
vigas, are sometimes the rough, unhewn
trunks of trees, usually cedar; sometimes,
even in handsome houses they are only
shaped roughly; again they are wrought
carefully, oiled or stained, and pricked on.
with gliding.
The stairs are mostly Of stone, wide, shall
low and not dangerous or uncomfortable 70
climb. The waterspouts ars strangely effect
i've as to picturesqueneSs, being heavy troughs
of masonry which project from the coping
nearly ward IN order to discharge the rain