uit is abundant, cheap, and delicious in the market-place of Aguas
Calientes. Fifty oranges were offered to us for a quarter of a dollar,
or two for a penny. Sunday is the principal market-day, when the country
people for miles around bring in fruit, vegetables, flowers, pottery,
and home-woven articles for sale. Men and women, sitting on the ground,
patiently wait for hours to make trifling sales, the profit on which
cannot exceed a few pennies, and often the poor creatures sell little or
nothing. The principal market is a permanent building, occupying a whole
block, or square. The area about which it is built is open in the
centre; that is, without covering. Here a motley group displayed
baskets, fruits, flowers, candies, pulque, boots, shoes, and sandals.
White onions mingled with red tomatoes and pineapples formed the apex to
a pyramid of oranges, bananas, lemons, pomegranates, all arranged so as
to present attractive colors and forms, being often decked with flowers.
Green sugar-cane, cut in available lengths, was rapidly consumed by
young Mexico, and gay young girls indulged in dulces (sweets). Hundreds
of patient donkeys, without harness of any sort, or even a rope about
their necks, stood demurely awaiting their hour of service. Beggars are
plenty, but few persons were seen really intoxicated, notwithstanding
that pulque is cheap and muscal very potent. Red, blue, brown, and
striped rebosas flitted before the eyes, worn by the restless crowd,
while occasionally one saw a lady of the upper class, attended by her
maid in gaudy colors, herself clad in the dark, conventional Spanish
style, her black hair, covered with a lace veil of the same hue, held in
place by a square-topped shell comb.

The public bathhouse, near the railroad depot, is remarkable for
spaciousness and for the excellence of the general arrangements. It is
built of a conglomerate of cobble-stones, bricks, and mortar, and might
be a bit out of the environs of Rome. In the central open area of these
baths is a choice garden full of blooming flowers and tropical trees.
Oleanders, fleurs-de-lis, flowering geraniums, peach blossoms, scarlet
poppies mingling with white, beside beds of pansies and violets,
delighted the eye and filled the air with perfume. The surroundings and
conveniences were more Oriental than Mexican, inviting the stranger to
bathe by the extraordinary facilities offered to him, and captivating
the senses by beauty and fragrance. Ther