beautiful Calzado — a triple avenue of magnificent trees, floored with broad red flagstones, and lined with low hedges of orange-trees in fruit and blossom — was a delightful promenade. Figs, pomegranates, and oleanders, of larger size than those even of California, made every inch of ground beautiful, and the warm air was sweet with fragrance.
In the streets here we began to see the mantilla, — the graceful black scarf, either of lace or fine wool, which is pinned over the hair and allowed to fall loosely above the shoulders. The women of all grades have an erect and graceful carriage. The dress for the street among the better classes is almost uniformly black; the Indian women wear any and every thing, but usually an embroidered white chemise and colored cotton skirt, surmounted by the inevitable blue reboso. The large market-place, with its collection of cool arches, and great splashing fountains in the centre, is always an attraction. Green pease, fresh fruits, young beets, small tomatoes, and potatoes the size of marbles, were spread about in what seemed to us interminable confusion, but which no doubt had a method of its own. We could forgive much to a
