The coastland times with which is combined the pilot and herald of Belhaven and Swan Quarter. [volume] (Manteo, N.C.) 1959-1973, 1960-06-03

skirts, barefooted Indians still do
their washing in stream, pound
ing clothes against a rock, spread
ing them on the boulders or the
dirt to dry. Not far away Guilt
Walton is carried out by yoked
oxen.
Even in the city, you cannot
drink water from the faucet. Why
the cities in Mexico have not in
stalled water publication systems
I do not know, although there is
SO little commerce to. provide ex-
change that it is understandable.
Maybe there are no taxes, or at
least very little-but little income
either. Accustomed as we Ameri-
cans are to drinking faucet water
everywhere we go, it gets darned
announcement after a while to ask,
in every restaurant, if the water
has been distilled; or in every hotel
i to ask for special drinking water.
The service, wherever we went,
was excellent, and most walters
can put American mattresses to
shame. There is no comparison.
One of the greatest pleasures was
attempting to converse with a
waiter who know no English. In
this way l gradually picked up
some Spanish.
Leaving Mexico City and driving
south through the mountains takes
you through a part of the country
considerably different from that
to the north. 1t becomes more
tropical, and the houses, instead of
adobe brick construction, are of the
thatched hut variety, some being
a roof alone, without walls. All
variety of livestock wanders free
ly in and out of the homestead.
One amusing home was matched
hut perched in a giant cactus plant.
The people carry their water with
buckets and yoke, as they did sew
eral centuries ago, fetching it from
nearby mountain stream.
While passing through one of the
small villages we stopped to in
spect some pottery being sold by
a travelling pottery merchant. The
Indians were bargaining as we ar
rived, and the conversation ceased
as we approached the truck. The
price which the merchant asked US
was obviously higher than that
asked the natives, for they sub
duedly chuckled when we were told
the price. We didn't buy, but
watched for while as the bar
gaining went on in muffled voices
and slurred Spanish. The Indians
cook with pottery on an open fire,
and also eat and drink from the
same type of individual utensils
that have been in use for several
centuries.
The land south of Mexico City is
not nearly as barren as that to
the north, through which we had
travelled in north-central Mexico on
the way to the capital. In that part
of the country cactus farms were
predominant. The cultivated cacti
| is used for many things-beer,
tequela, rope and other fabric pro-
ducts.
Cattle, swine, chicken, goats,
sheep, and Mexicans are all over
the roads, and a driver must be
constantly on the alert to avoid
them. A ten year old boy, at one
bend in the road, had set up a
roadblock, the only one of its kind
which / encountered. When we
stopped he spoke in Spanish, and
the best we interpreted as-that
| he wanted our change. had been
told that the Bandidoes went out
with Pancho Villa, and this unex-
pected situation was only one Of
the many, many things which were
different and amusing about anoth-
er country. AS I put the car in
gear again and drove on without
contributing, I wondered just how
many more millions there are in
Mexico just like him, and ! could
only guess as to how hungry he and
his whole family might have been
| at that moment.
Il 49, a 4