Saturday noon.
Just home from the volador (thieves' market), with "goods" upon me. Toward the end of the week it gets increasingly aromatic, as it is only swept and garnished Saturday afternoon, and it is traditional and expedient for the foreigner to patronize it on the Sabbath rather than other days. But having been to "La Joya," a very nice and expensive antique-shop in the Avenida San Francisco, where I got a frame of dark wood with ivory inlay, just the size for my Ravell photograph of the Church at Guanajuato, also a love of a little tortoise-shell petaca (miniature valise) with silver clampings, I thought to strike an average in prices at the volador, where the sun was shining brilliantly on purely Indian commercial life.
The "commerce" consisted more than usual, it seemed to me, of the refuse of ages, collected under irregular rows of booths, canvas- or board-covered, or simply piled on spaces marked out on the uncomfortable, hot cobblestones. It all covers what once was the site of the new Palace of Montezuma, and is named volador after a sort of Aztec gymnastic game. For a long time it belonged to the heirs of Cortés, from whom the city finally bought it, and it is close behind the Palacio.
As I entered the gate there was the usual collection of Indians of all sizes and colors, but with the same destinies. Many were passing by with their huacales (crates) filled with bananas and oranges and various green things, for near by is the great fruit-market of the city. Some women were selling long plaited strings of onions, and by the gate was standing a superior-looking individual with a stick twice as high as himself, on which were stuck white, pink, and blue toy birds.
Instead of abandoning hope as one goes through these portals, one finds oneself immensely expectant, one's eyes darting hither and thither in search of treasure, the eternal something for nothing!
Mexico is called the land of the sombrero (hat), but when I go to the volador I feel it should be called the land of the candlestick. There are so many candlesticks in every variety of shape and kind, and occasionally of great beauty.
ELIM O'SHAUGHNESSY, MEXICO, JUNE, 1911