[CHAPTER XX.]
RAPACIOUS CARGADORES.—OLD BOOK-STORES IN THE PORTALES.—PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN THE MEXICAN CAPITAL; THE PUPILS IN ATTENDANCE.—THEATRES AND HOSPITALS.—A THEATRE SUPPORTING A HOSPITAL.—THE BROTHERS OF CHARITY.—INSIDE THE THEATRES.—A PERFORMANCE OF OPERA.—A MINOR THEATRE.—LISTENING TO A MEXICAN PERFORMANCE.—BULL-FIGHTING IN MEXICO.—A DISGRACEFUL SPORT.—ORIGIN OF THE BULL-FIGHT.—MARIONETTE THEATRES.—THE PROCESSIONS.—MEXICAN LOVE FOR COCK-FIGHTING.—COMMINGLING OF RELIGIOUS CEREMONIALS AND AMUSEMENTS.—THE POSADA AND THE PASTORELA; THEIR PECULIARITIES.—KILLING JUDAS.
WANTS A SOUVENIR.
The train by which our friends returned to the capital left Amecameca at 1.20 in the afternoon, and reached the San Lazero station at 4 o'clock. A crowd of cargadores swooped down on the baggage, and for a time threatened to disappear with it in as many directions as there were single pieces, but by dint of watchfulness and energy it was rescued and placed in charge of a runner from the hotel. The Morelos, or Interoceanic Railway, the one by which the party had travelled, is distinctively a Mexican line; it was built by Mexican capital, or capital borrowed by Mexicans, and the management is Mexican throughout. When finished it will be literally what its name implies, as it will connect the Atlantic Ocean at Vera Cruz with the Pacific at Acapulco. At the time our friends were in Mexico work was being pushed on the eastern division of the line (between Vera Cruz and the capital), and its managers were confident of completing it by the end of 1890 or 1891. At last accounts the completion of the western division (from the capital to Acapulco) was very much in the future.
It seemed to Frank and Fred that they had been away from the city for a month or two, when in reality they had been gone less than a week. The next morning they were out early to ascertain if any changes had taken place during their absence—whether any new buildings had been erected or old ones demolished, new streets opened, or new avenues laid out. They strolled through the portales, and stopped at the little shops established between the arches of the covered way that shelters the sidewalks from sun and rain, to bargain for old books and odds and ends of curiosities. Fred had received a letter from a friend at home asking him to pick up certain old books if they were to be found, and he made many inquiries for the volumes. One after another, he found them, and the search roused in him a fever for book-buying which did not abate until he had invested several dollars in antique specimens of the printer's art.
"How does it happen that so many old books are sold at these stalls in the portales?" he said to Doctor Bronson on his return to the hotel.