CHRISTMAS IN MEXICO.
"Christmas is in Guadalaxara," says Mr. Hardy, "a season of great diversion. The portales (colonades), which are much better than those of the city of Mexico, and infinitely more numerous, are all well lighted up with candles, surrounded by coloured paper shades, standing on little tables, which display a great assortment of sweetmeats and fruits. The ladies and gentlemen walk about, finely dressed, under the portale, and convert it into a fashionable promenade.—From seven till ten, there is not perhaps a single family in the whole town which has not taken a few turns in their gayest dresses, to witness the sweetmeat exhibition—to see and to be seen. It may be well to give the traveller a gentle hint with respect to the 25th of December: nothing borrowed on that day is ever returned. It is, in short, to the Mexicans, who call it. 'La noche buena,' what April fool-day is to us. Therefore, traveller, beware! It is the occasion of much frolic and amusement."