The Challis messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1912-current, 1925-05-06

vStas of q new world. On this canal,
bordered with trees and spanned by
quaint bridges, is a perfect stream OF
craft, from the slender dugout
chaloupe to the square-bowed fatboat,
hurrying on with everything to feed,
repair. and adorn the great city.
The Indian boatmen. clad in white
cotton shirts and trousers, are working
with a will, sometimes wading in the
canal and drawing the heavy-laden
boats after then; and alas returning
to their paradise, a woman plotting
her husband who is the worse for
pulque
Pictures Along the Canal.
There are pictures and pictures in
| Vulnerable. full of human interest and
checkered with marvellous play of
| light, shadow, and reflection, as we
pass by the gardens and openings of
the larger and smaller canals. Here
are embarkings and arrivals loading,
unloading, and preparing to lay by for
the night in snug slip near where
the luxuriant foliage; here a group of
energetic washerwomen by the water
margin, and there clouds Of white or
gaudy much-belabored clothes on the
bushes. No secrets are here; all goes
on with the pulsing, urging force of
labor freely and openly before men.
One remembers gardeners and gar
dens in the sunny flower and vegetable
plots and children peeping out on the
canal highway from under outrageous
trees. Flotsam and jetsam in the
canal are vagrant bulbs and flowers of
plant, whose reproductivity makes
men work to keep it down. but here it
has met its match and is made to be
useful. Bridges there are, and most
quaint, like that perfect arch Of Ixti-
calico, under which white geese seem
to float in the air.
One feels that this panorama should
last forever especially if he does not
have to supply the labor of locomotion
Here at this landing at Xochimilco ii
leaves of our experience, the loneliness
of the country of the lake dwellers.
are just unfolding.
The town is really built on terra |
firma, as the seven churches, each we'll |
supplied with raucous bells, the streets
Of quaint houses, and the broad lava
paved prehistoric market-place, we'll
attest; but the town DISCUSSES and
hides away the life of the canals and
gardens, and its attractions for the
tourist are soon compassed
We turn into a narrow lane leading
away from the formal streets and
emerge into an Indian dooryard and
within few feet of us is the main
canal with its boats and floating water
plants. The inhabitants of this little
house group into which we have come
as from another sphere are Interested
and friendly and ready to visit.
Making a Floating Garden.
1t is interesting to see lake dwellers
constructing a floating" garden, and
one is carried back without effort sew
aral centuries into the past. From the |
canals the busy Aztecs throw great ,
masses of water hyacinth upon the
strip OF bog to the thickness of foot
)r more. The water hyacinth, which
does not fit Into the
lncient picture, Is provided with large
cellular hoats-a natural provision for
is dissemination, which has made II
IN obstruction to navigation in some
ivers of southern United States.
Upon this bed of floats they spread
layer OF muck, dredged from the bot
ON OF the canals. Perhaps before the
liant floats have decaysd, these gar f
lens may drift away should the wafer I
Use. Even now on portions OF the 4
axe square miles of vegetation cover T
he surface like the "sudd" of the =
Vile, and the canal roads have to be :,
taxed at the sides TO keep them from ;.
isappearing. Great drifts of micro.
copic vegetation cover the stagnant -
'ater Of the open lakes with mantle
'vely In color, while the bottom Is
oral red from a weed that thriyes In
ne water. a
The term floating gardens" was a
roperly applied by the early hIsto- 6
ans of Mexico to masses of water :,
seds covered with layer of PUSHES y
caring thin layer of soil. employed u
the Mexicans at period when the c.
nctMting waters of the lakes pre d
anted the formation of permanent, 81
linampas, and so in the New World N
e Indians repeated the famed gar. q
ms Of the lakes of Cashmere. Il