sea-sick here. Ex-President Hill's theory, that a fire is fed from below, and must be put out by pouring water on its base, and not on its summit, obtains here in regard to earthquakes. The earth shakes from below, and would topple down these towers on the haughty heads that dared to lift them up. So the city well-nigh reaches the Sybarite perfection Edward Everett Hale approves, and is hardly ever over two stories, and is much of it of his perfect perfection of one story. These houses are of mortar or stone, all of them, and very broad of base and thick of wall. They hug the earth so close that she can not throw them off. She must tip herself clean over, before she can turn these houses on the heads of their builders. Those builders' heads were level, and their works are also.
The wind flows through the open windows, cool as the midsummer sea-breeze—never cooler. The streets have donkeys, carrying water in kegs, milk in bottles, charcoal (their only fuel) in bags, grasses for thatch, and other burdens. A carriage I have not yet seen. One is said to exist here, but it is not visible to the naked eye. A few horses are used, chiefly by the haciendados, or farmers, riding into town. Even the ladies turn out on foot to the grand reception to the President on the opening of the railway to the capital. The horse-car is the only vehicle, and that is useless. The city is a Venice, but for its mules and asses.
The fountain at the head of Callé Centrale is a favorite resort for these few beasts, and for many water-carriers. There is abundance of water; and nowhere in this country, or any country, are there cleaner streets or superior baths. Yet buzzard and bath, free fountain and washed street, do not keep off the yellow fever. The walls, some think, cause it, as they shut out the winds—the only thing they do shut out, every foe easily subduing them. They should be leveled, if they kill thus those they pretend to protect.
The business of the city is quite large. Some houses do a million and a half a year; for here come about all the goods of Europe and America that enter Mexico. But the houses that get the trade
