in classic folds, and ceasing near the front in a broad plain space. There was no fullness in the back, which seemed to add to their ease of movement. A broad, hand-wrought, bright-colored sash, tied at the side, held the skirt in place. The chemise had a deep-pointed yoke, elaborately embroidered with various-colored beads. They wore on their heads a kind of hood, also of manta, which partly concealed their shoulders, but left in ease and freedom their exquisitely molded arms. With hair hanging far below the waist, in full braided plaits, lips and cheeks of cherry-red, eyes softly glowing, and white teeth shining, the whole twenty that we saw would have made a gorgeous picture, but my efforts to procure even one portrait were unavailing, owing to their inherited prejudices. As they passed before us in close Indian file, with hardly a hair's-breadth space between them, all stepping as lightly as sylphs, under their burdens of fruits and vegetables, each one spoke to me, and in answer to my inquiries, gave me a kindly "adios, niña."
As but little is known to the outside world of the vast resources of the state and city of Puebla, I append the translation of a letter on this subject to El Diario del Hogar, a paper published at the capital:
"Excepting the capital of the republic, Puebla is the city which has most railroad stations, there being at present six, ample and well built—namely, the Mexican; that of the line of Izucorde Matamoros; that of the Texmelucan line: that called San Marcos; that of the Carboniferous Zone; and the Urbano, or city line. In its neighborhood the city has coal on the ranches of Santa Barbara; it has the inexhaustible quarry on the hill of Guadalupe, from which have come the pavements, houses, palaces, churches, and other great or large edifices in adjacent towns. This stone is dark and of a very fine grain. Further, Puebla has a quarry on the hill of Loreto, from which is taken a soft stone called xalnenen, used in building. There is the kaolin which supplies the factories of Puebla, where are manufactured the tiles that were known as talanera. There is a very fine clay for red earthenware and brick, which supplies the potteries in the suburb of La Luz, and the eighty-nine kilns for making the
