. Our country: West. been so often repairedthat it has lost much of its ancient look, but the massive wallsand heavy hewn beams remain unchanged, and will, no doubt,bear their mute witness to its antiquity for a century or moreto come. The plaza on which it fronts is two and a half acressquare, well-shaded, provided with seats, and, commanding aview of all the life there is in the town, it is the best possiblepoint from which to gather an impression of Santa Fe, i8o THE OLDEST AMERICAN HOUSES. Sitting there, looking at the governors old palace on thenorth, and the row of smart Jew shops on the
. Our country: West. been so often repairedthat it has lost much of its ancient look, but the massive wallsand heavy hewn beams remain unchanged, and will, no doubt,bear their mute witness to its antiquity for a century or moreto come. The plaza on which it fronts is two and a half acressquare, well-shaded, provided with seats, and, commanding aview of all the life there is in the town, it is the best possiblepoint from which to gather an impression of Santa Fe, i8o THE OLDEST AMERICAN HOUSES. Sitting there, looking at the governors old palace on thenorth, and the row of smart Jew shops on the south, at thelow and half-crumbling mud-walls and houses, and the bignew brick and wooden buildings cropping out here and there,and overtopping everything, one sees an effective picture ofthe clashing of the new and the old. It is the new that suffers most by contrast. The long, lowadobes, with their lines of absolute simplicity, and their softyellow-gray color, seem far more dignified than the modern (i£?_3^.;rrr. Street in Santa Fe. wooden building, or even the substantial brick one, withcopings and facings of different colors. Contrasts no lessmarked will be seen in the passers-by in the streets. Thesuccessions are almost Close on the heels of two dapper young Americans in abuggy, with surveying instruments and charts in their hands,comes a Mexican cart, creeping along, drawn by oxen ; itswheels are circles of solid wood, sections of tree-trunks, THE OLDEST AMERICAN HOUSES. l8l roughly hewn, with an irregularly-shaped hole in the centre,in which creaks the rough-hewn axle. The driver is in rags and dirty, but he wears a fine broad-brimmed sombrero, with a roll of twisted silver wire and strawaround the crown; and as he goes he sings a lilting song tohimself, or whistles softly, or takes a nap in his cart, andhe would not change places with the hard-working youngsurveyors if he could. Sauntering through the plaza, and looking curiously, withfurtive glances, at s
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectwestusdescriptionand
