II
We had just acquired the mental attitude requisite to appreciation of Mexico—a state of unworried and unhurried tranquillity such as enables the Mexican himself to sit all day on a plaza bench, enjoying the balmy southern breezes, smoking innumerable cigarettes, discussing nothing in particular, watching the other idlers, and admiring the beauties—both animate and inanimate—of the whole pleasant scene.
Mazatlán had been designed for people with such a mental attitude. The climate was balmy. The whole city was quaintly Mexican. There was not a tourist sight in town. There was, in short, nothing to do except to sit in the plaza—such a plaza as might be found in any other Mexican city, a little square park with a music kiosk in the center, surrounded by palms and ferns and shaded walks, and with an aged white cathedral for its background. Sitting there, one saw the entire population pass in review, for as elsewhere in Mexico, the plaza was at once a club, a meeting place, a music-hall, a playground, and even a marriage market.