g themselves, and
everything about them, with garlands and nosegays. The fruits and
vegetables they were carrying to market were very English in their
appearance. Mexico is supplied with all kinds of tropical fruits, which
come from a distance; but the district we are now in only produces
plants which might grow in our own country--barley, potatoes, cabbages,
parsnips, apples, pears, plums, peaches, and so forth, but scarcely
anything tropical in its character. One thing surprises us, that the
Indians, in a climate where the mornings and evenings are often very
chilly, should dress so scantily. The men have a general appearance of
having outgrown their clothes; for the sleeves of the kind of
cotton-shirt they wear only reach to their elbows, and their trousers,
of the same material, only fall to their knees. To these two garments
add a sort of blanket, thrown over the shoulders, a pair of sandals,
and a palm-leaf hat, and the man is dressed. His skin is brown, his
limbs muscular--especially his legs--his lips thick, his nose Jewish,
his hair coarse, black, and hanging straight down. The woman's dress is
as simple as the man's. She has on a kind of cotton sack, very short in
the sleeves, and very open at the shoulders, and some sort of a skirt
or petticoat besides. Sometimes she has a folded cotton cloth on her
head, like a Roman contadina; but, generally, nothing covers her thick
black hair, which hangs down behind in long twisted tails.

In old times, when Mexico was in the middle of a great lake, and the
inhabitants were not strong enough to hold land on the shores, they
were driven to strange shifts to get food. Among other expedients, they
took to making little floating islands, which consisted of rafts of
reeds and brushwood, on which they heaped mud from the shores of the
lakes. On the banks of the lake of Tezcuco the mud was, at first, too
full of salt and soda to be good for cultivation; but by pouring the
water of the lake upon it, and letting it soak through, they dissolved
out most of the salts, and the island was fit for cultivation, and bore
splendid crops of vegetables.[7] These islands were called _chinampas_,
and they were often large enough for the proprietor to build a hut in
the middle, and live in it with his family. In later times, when the
Mexicans came to be no longer afraid of their neighbours, the chinampas
were not of much use; and when the water was drained off, and the city
stood on dry land,