. A white umbrella in Mexico. often loses the esprit of thefirst impression, and so goes away withouta line. It was not the fault of the day orthe market. The sun was brilliant beyondbelief, the sky superb; the open squareof the older section was filled with tumble-down bungalow - like sheds, hung withscreens of patched matting ; the side-walks were fringed with giant thatchedumbrellas, picturesque in the extreme;the costumes were rich and varied: allthis and more, and yet I was not satis-fied. Outside the slanting roofs, heapedup on the pavement, lay piles of greenvegetables, pottery, and fru
. A white umbrella in Mexico. often loses the esprit of thefirst impression, and so goes away withouta line. It was not the fault of the day orthe market. The sun was brilliant beyondbelief, the sky superb; the open squareof the older section was filled with tumble-down bungalow - like sheds, hung withscreens of patched matting ; the side-walks were fringed with giant thatchedumbrellas, picturesque in the extreme;the costumes were rich and varied: allthis and more, and yet I was not satis-fied. Outside the slanting roofs, heapedup on the pavement, lay piles of greenvegetables, pottery, and fruit, glisteningin the dazzling light. Inside the boothshung festoons of bright stuffs, rebozos2ind paTitielos, gray and cool by crowds of natives streamed in 144 ^ White Umbrella in Mexico and out the sheds, blocked up narrowpassageways, grouped m the open, anddisappeared into the black shadows of aninviting archway, beyond which an evencrisper sunlight glowed in dabs, spots,and splashes of luxuriant There was everything, in fact, to intox-icate a man in search of the picturesque,and yet I idled along without opening mysketch-book, and for more than an hourlugged my trap about: deciding on a groupunder the edge of the archway, with aglimpse of blue in the sky and the towersof the church beyond; abandoning thatinstantly for a long stretch of street lead- In Puehla de los Angeles 14^ ing out of a square dotted with donkeyswaiting to be unloaded; and concluding,finally, to paint some high-wheeled carts,only to relinquish them all for somethingelse. I continued, I say, to waste thus fool-ishly my precious time, until, dazed andworn out, I turned on my heel, hailed acab, and drove to the old Paseo. ThereI entered the little plazuela, emboweredin trees, sat down opposite the delightfulold church of San Francisco, and was atwork in five minutes. When one is daz-zled by a sunset, let him shut his the blaze of a Mexican market, trythe quiet grays of
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, bookpublisherbostonhoughtonmiff
