who "play the bear" to late hours of the night, and over their shoulders
the passerby caught many a glimpse of richly furnished rooms and flowery
patios beyond.

The river Catalina was drier than even the Manzanares, its rocky bed,
wide enough to hold the upper Connecticut, entirely taken up by mule and
donkey paths and set with the cloth booths of fruit sellers. As one
moves south it grows cooler, and Monterey, fifteen hundred feet above
sea-level, was not so weighty in its heat as Laredo and southern
Texas. But, on the other hand, being surrounded on most sides by
mountains, it had less breeze, and the coatless freedom of Texas was
here looked down upon. During the hours about noonday the sun seemed to
strike physically on the head and back whoever stepped out into it, and
the smallest fleck of white cloud gave great and instant relief. From
ten to four, more or less, the city was strangely quiet, as if more than
half asleep, or away on a vacation, and over it hung that indefinable
scent peculiar to Arab and Spanish countries. Compared with Spain,
however, its night life and movement was slight.

Convicts in perpendicularly striped blue and white pajamas worked in the
streets. That is, they moved once every twenty minutes or so, usually
to roll a cigarette. They were without shackles, but several guards in
brown uniforms and broad felt hats, armed with thick-set muskets, their
chests criss-crossed with belts of long rifle cartridges, lolled in the
shade of every near-by street corner. The prisoners laughed and chatted
like men perfectly contented with their lot, and moved about with great
freedom. One came a block to ask me the time, and loafed there some
fifteen minutes before returning to his "labor."

Mexico is strikingly faithful to its native dress. Barely across the