The Boy Travellers in Mexico / Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey to Northern and Central Mexico, Campeachey, and Yucatan, With a Description of the Republics of Central America and of the Nicaragua Canal

by Thomas Wallace Knox

SCENE IN A BALL-ROOM.

"It was our good-fortune to be in Merida in the season of dancing, and we were invited to go to a ball, in fact to several balls. We went first to an aristocratic one, which was given in the Casino, a large, two-storied building, with balconies or verandas all around, and brilliantly lighted. It is built around a court-yard planted with tropical trees and flowers in great profusion, and is a very attractive place.

"The ball-room occupied three sides of the upper story of the building, while the fourth contained the dressing and supper rooms. The orchestra was in the corridor just outside the dancing-hall, and while everybody could hear the music, very few could see the musicians. We got there before the dance began and while the ladies were coming out of the dressing-rooms and taking seats at the side of the ball-room, very much as they are seated in other countries. We observed that the gentlemen held the ladies by the hand as they escorted them to their seats, and not by giving them their arms as we do.

"It was a real beauty show when the ladies were ranged along the wall, and they seemed to know it just as well as did their admirers, who congregated at one end of the hall and in the corridors, and smoked cigarettes. The gentlemen chatted with each other with more or less animation, but watched the line of señoritas, whose eyes sparkled like diamonds and were a sharp contrast to their pearly white teeth. Under the light the señoritas' complexions were as glowing as that of a young English girl; of course, we cannot say how much of it is due to nature, and how much to cosmetics. They all had splendid heads of coal-black hair, arranged in the tasteful way for which Spanish ladies are famous.

"The music struck up for a waltz, and then each gentleman advanced towards the lady of his choice, and whirled her away for the round of the hall. The theory of these balls is that everybody knows everybody else, and the gentlemen did not ask the ladies whether they wanted to dance or not. Of course, it is to be presumed that they were there with that object in view, but we thought it would be more graceful if they had been consulted before being lifted from their seats and set in motion.

"We had wondered how it was possible for people to dance in this hot atmosphere, but when we heard how slowly the music played, and saw that the waltz was only a slow gliding and sliding over the floor, as though the waltzers were not more than half awake, we wondered no longer. It is nothing like the exciting whirl of a waltz in northern countries; and the same may be said of the other dances of this very select assemblage. We remained half an hour or so, and then went to the mestizo ball, where it was a good deal more animated.

"The mestizo girls wore the white dresses already described; some of them had only a few ribbons or flowers for ornaments, while others were loaded down with bracelets, rings, and other ornaments, in which diamonds had a more or less prominent part. A gentleman who was with us said many of the diamonds were hired for the occasion, and he had no doubt that a good share of them were paste. The men were the most comical sights you can imagine, as they all wore their hats, and the most of them had their shirts waving outside, after the custom of the country. Some of them had coats and jackets. A man thus clad was looked upon as an aristocrat; but to be so considered he was obliged to suffer some inconvenience, as the outer garment is a serious burden in the heavy tropical atmosphere, made doubly oppressive by the heat of the room. Two or three men carried their jackets on their arms, and some flung them into a corner at the risk of never finding them again.

"The musicians were native Indians, who played with perfect time and melody, as though they had graduated from the schools of the most accomplished masters of Europe. All these people are natural musicians; a very little instruction suffices for them, and with careful training they ought to be able to astonish the world. The men and women dance to perfection; we did not see a false step taken during the time we looked on at the ball, and yet it is not likely that any of the dancers ever had the advantage of a professional instructor. The members of the orchestra at the mestizo ball were dressed in the shirt and drawers already mentioned, and, like the dancing men of the party, retained their hats all the time they played.

"The dances were more interesting than those of the fashionable ball, inasmuch as the latter were European in character, while those of the mestizos had a peculiarity of their own. One was called the zopilote, or buzzard dance; a man and a woman each carrying a handkerchief which they twirled above their heads, and in all sorts of directions whirled and twisted themselves along the floor, all the while keeping perfect time to the music of the performers. It reminded us very much of one of the national dances of the Russians, which is often given by the ballet troupes of the imperial theatres of Moscow and St. Petersburg, and may be seen in its simplicity in almost any town or village of the great northern empire.