inner for the _elite_ and well-dressed class, the outer for the _peon_
and Indian class. It would be manifestly impossible that the hordes of
blanket-clothed, _pulque_-saturated, ill-smelling, and picturesque
lower class could rub shoulders with the _gente decente_ or upper
class, nor do they desire to do so. They take their fill of the music
quite indifferent to the presence of their superiors in the social
grade, and the vendors of native sweetmeats, cooling drinks, and fruits
ply their trade among them. On one side of the plaza, in the smaller
towns, there are booths or tables where food is being cooked and
displayed for the lower orders; and the savoury odour of _frijoles_ and
_tortillas_, or other matters of satisfaction to the _peon_, greet the
nostrils of the promenader from time to time. The well-dressed
_senoritas_ and their male acquaintances, with ceaseless _charla_, or
small-talk, promenade round and round the plaza, flirting, laughing,
and enjoying life in a way that seems only possible to the Latin race.
Indeed, the plaza is the principal meeting-place of the sexes.

As has been remarked, Mexico is a land of many capital cities. From the
City of Mexico, northward along the plateau and southward, eastward,
and westward, we may visit a score of handsome State capitals, a
hundred towns, and an endless succession of remote villages and
hamlets. Their environments embrace every change of scenery--from arid
plains and rocky steeps to fertile valleys; and the larger communities
share the quaint--if not always hygienic--disposition and atmosphere of
their especial national character. At times, however, the smaller
hamlets, or collection of primitive habitations of the plateau, have an
inexpressibly dreary and squalid aspect, the backwardness and poverty
of their people being well stamped thereon. Treeless, dusty, and
_triste_, they strike a note of melancholy within us. The towns of the
Pacific and Gulf slopes have generally some added charm afforded by the
tropic vegetation surrounding them, and we shall often mark with
surprise, after days of dusty and arduous journeying, that we have
suddenly entered a handsomely built town, sequestered far from beaten
routes of travel, yet bearing a stamp of permanence and solidity and
the air of an independent entity.

[Illustration: A PUBLIC GARDEN IN TROPICAL MEXICO: VIEW AT COLIMA.]

The first city of importance in the country is, of course, the Federal
capital of the Re