its countenance a certain number of further representations. Moreover, personified by a boxful of gaudily dressed officials and employés, it consented to wag its long ears in approbation, while Pellegrini agitated her larynx in the character of Semiramis; and to clap its hands at the sight of the sexagenarian Galli, tightly braced up to perform the role of the lithe and active scoundrel Figaro. All the world went to the opera!
And all the world went to the bullfights—and we went too; and, the butchery apart, the scene presented in the great amphitheatre, not far from the Alameda de las Vigas, was an animating and beautiful one.
The form and arrangement of the wooden structure need not be very minutely described. It contains the usual gradations of covered galleries and uncovered ranges of seats, to afford fitting accommodation to both rich and poor. There are four great tiers of lodges with subdivisions, capable of containing thirty thousand people. We may have seen ten thousand collected there of all degrees, from the presiding alcalde and his fellows, to the half-naked guachinango; damas, paysanos, poblanitas—individuals of every hue and breed, for the diversity of which Mexico is pre-eminent.[1] The brilliancy of colouring and great variety of costumes visible throughout the assemblage; and the intense blue of the cloudless sky above; the masses of light and shadow resting upon the domes and broad walls of a large church—which is the only object without visible from the interior of the amphitheatre—produced a picture of great beauty; without even taking into account
- ↑ The population of New Spain consists of seven distinct classes, besides people of recent Asiatic origin.
1. The Gachupin—the full-blood European, or more properly the Spaniard, whose numbers are now very inconsiderable, having dwindled down since the revolution from 80,000 to probably not more than 10,000.
2. Creoles of European extraction, 1,000,000.
3. Mestizzoes, the offspring of the European and Indian, 2,000,000.
4. Mulattoes, the offspring of Europeans and Negroes, 400,000.
5. Aboriginal Indians, numbering from three to four millions.
6. African Negroes and their descendants, 100,000.
7. Zamboes, the offspring of Negro and Indian, 2,000,000.
To these, about 15,000 European foreigners are to be added.
