The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-06-14

mats that cost more than 500. SoE1e of the
mats were trimmed with gold and silver
cord, and | looked at $50 one which
weighed about ten pounds, and which
measured eighteen inches from one side of
she orim to the other. 1t had a crown a
1907 high, and there was a cord
OF gold rope as big around as my
wrist about it, Many of the hats had
goid and silver letter upon them, and
see many worn which have the mono.
grams OF their owners cut out of silver and
sewed on TO the sides. They are OF many
Scoiors--a delicate cream, drab and a
Diack being very common-and they are
beautifully made and are said to be just
the thing for this hot sun and the high
WINDS. The same firm sold ladies' hats
MOST OF these came from Paris. They were
very high-priced and not at all pretty
Near by stopped at a Mexican clothing
store and looked at some Mexican panta-
ICONS. here again found that the dude
OF our sister republic has to pay for his
style. Many of the pantaloons were made
Oh ouckskin, and the incest pairs which
were lined with solid silver buttons down
the sides cost as high as $50 to $75, and
coats were likewise high. 1t is not hard
Ior Mexican country gentleman to spend
from $500 to 800 on his clothes, and when
you take into consideration that he has to
sport saddle, spurs and revolver of like
gorgeous character, you see that if
one of these big farmers has
crowd of grown-up boys, his clothing
DIS amount to something. This. how
ever. is the case of only the rich. The
poor here are so poor that they don't
Know how poor they are, and their clothes
cost practically nothing. A pair of these
cast-oft buckskln pantaloons will last a
long time, and the ordinary cotton suits
worn by the poor, though high consider
Ing their character, cost but little. A
blanket costs from dollar or two up. and
the leather sandals which are worn almost
universally by the Indians are nothing
more than two pieces of sole leather as big
as your hand tied to the top and bottom
OF the feet with leather strings These
cost Is cents apiece and last a long time.
The dress of the poorer women is even
cheaper than that OF the men, and Mex
lco's 5000, 900 of peasants will have to
make more money and have greater needs
before the land can become q great con-
sumner of the goods of any nation. Their
houses are novels of mud, and their diet is
simpler than their clothes, consisting of
little more than corn-cakes and red pep
pers.
Up to the present time every Mexican
city have visited has been suffering for
lack of water. The greater part of the
country north of here on the line of the
Mexican Central road is desert, and the
big mining towns of Zacatecas and Guiana
huato have hundreds of men who make
water peddling their profession. In Zaca-
tecas the water, with the exception of a
little stream that flows into big fountain
In the plaza, comes from spring away up
on the side of the mountain, and it is
brought down on the backs of little don
keys, in red clay jars. These jars are tied
lxvr
them from house to house as our dairy
men do their milk. In Guiana
huato the people are more enter
prising, and they have a system
of water-works, which, however, by no
means supplies the demands of the city.
The water peddlers here carry the water
about on their backs in immense jars of
red pottery, about four feet long and a foot
in diameter, and they tilt these over when
they want to serve customer. In Zaca-
tecas saw a soldier guarding the only
working fountain of the city, and allowing
only so many men and women to dip up
water out of it at a time, and back of these,
under the blaze of the hot sun. other men
and women squatted, with gourds and
crooks or oil cans, waiting their turn. The
water from the fountain was scooped up
by these people as fast as it flowed out of
the half dozen mouths of the fountain,
and mer and women bent themselves
double in reaching over and catching the
drops in their gourds as it came or in
scooping it up from the edge of the fount-
ain.
Aguas Calientes means "Hot water"
and the hot springs here are among the
finest in the world. There are a number
of them, and the people come here by the
thousands to battle in their health-giving
waters. There is a big bathhouse kept up,
/ was told, by the town which has ex-
cellent bathing arrangements, and in
which there is vat of hot water about
fifty feet square, which is used as a swim
ming bath. This is near the depot on the
edge of the town, but preferred to go to
the old baths at the springs about mile
out in the country. The road to these
baths is one of the finest in Mexico, and
sights along it you will see nowhere else
in the world. Picture to yourself long
avenue of great cypress trees which al
most meet far above your head and shut
out the glare of the Mexican sun
and the silver of the clear sky.
Let these trees be very near together, and
let them go on and on until they seem to
almost come together in the distance.
Along the sides of the road let there be
the greenest of grass, and on the right of
YOU as YOU walk towards the bath place
stream of steel blue water from which the
steam rises as it flows on towards you,
Let this steel blue stream flow through
little aqueduct of white stone, and let this
be about three feet wide and about four
feet deep. Here you have the background
of the picture Now for the show itself.
This stream is the waste OF the hot
springs 1t is also the bathing place and
the washing place of the common people
of the Aztecs of Aguas Calientes. They
are here by the hundreds-men and
women, girls and boys, lovers and
sweethearts-ali bathing together in
the warm. refreshing and health-giv-
ing waters. Many of them have
washed their clothes while in the
water and these they have spread out on
the green banks to dry. Under these great
trees as far as your eye can see, there are
white waists. red skirts and the other
bright bits of color made by many colored
serapes and the gay rebosas which lie on
the green banks while their owners are
splashing and playing and scrnbolng them
selves in the little trench below. Here is
a man bathing while his wife sits on the
bank and watches him, and the sun creeps
through the trees and paints his dark skin
a rich mahogany. Here there Is half
nude Venus. naked almost to the waist,
scrubbing away, washing some clothes by
rubbing them on rough stone, and there
under a tree lies an Indian, half-dressed
but sound asleep. | point my camera at
him and his wife springs up from the stone
where she is washing and stands over him
as though she feared the camera was some
new-fangled gun. / press the button. how
ever. and the lens and the shutter do the
rest.
will walk along the stream and amuse
myself by taking note OF the bathers.
in actions