difference of temperature between the sunny and the shady sides of the
street. It must have been fully ten degrees. One becomes uncomfortably
warm while walking in the sunshine, but upon crossing into the shade he
is quickly chilled by the frostiness of the still, dry atmosphere and a
realizing sense of dampness beneath his feet. "Only dogs and Americans
walk on the sunny side," say the Mexicans. To this we can only answer by
commending the discretion of both men and beasts. In the early evening,
as soon as the sun sets, the natives begin to wrap up their throats and
faces, even in midsummer. Yet they seem to avoid the sun while it shines
in the middle of the day.

In New Zealand and Alaska, when two natives meet each other and desire
to express pleasure at the circumstance, they rub their noses together.
In Mexico, if two gentlemen meet upon the street or elsewhere after a
considerable absence, they embrace cordially and pat each other on the
back in the most demonstrative manner, just as two parties fall on each
other's neck in a stage embrace. To a cool looker-on this seemed rather
a waste of the raw material, taking place between two individuals of the
same sex. In Japan, two persons on meeting in public begin bowing their
bodies until the forehead nearly touches the ground, repeating this
movement a score of times. In China, two gentlemen who meet greet each
other by shaking their own left hand in their right. In Norway and
Sweden, the greeting is made by taking off and replacing the hat half a
dozen times; the greater number of times, the more cordial is the
greeting considered; but in Mexico it is nothing more nor less than an
embrace with both arms.

The carrying of concealed weapons is prohibited by law in the United
States and some other countries, but in Mexico a statute is not
permitted to be simply a dead letter. While we were at the Iturbide, the
police of the capital were vigorously enforcing a new law, which forbids
the carrying of any sort of deadly weapon except in open sight. The
common people were being searched for knives, of which, when found, they
were instantly deprived, so that at one of the police stations there was
a pile of these articles six feet high and four wide. They were in all
manner of shapes, short and long, sharp and dull, daggerlike or
otherwise, but all worn for the purpose either of assault or defense.
They came from the possession of the humble natives, who could not plead
th