NATIVE POTTERY.
Some of the pottery in the market was so good that the boys consulted Doctor Bronson as to the advisability of sending home a few specimens of it. The Doctor checked their enthusiasm by reminding them that they were just then at the beginning of their journey, and it would be prudent to delay purchases until reaching the capital. A few jars and pots were selected and bargained for, more by way of practice in the language and customs than for any other purpose, and they were left with an American merchant, who undertook to ship them to New York. They were all of Indian workmanship, the best having come, so the dealer said, from Guadalajara. Mexican pottery deserves a higher rank among ceramics than it has hitherto enjoyed, and some of the handiwork of the descendants of the Aztecs would be worthy of admiration in any collection.
A SCENE IN THE MARKET.
There were scores and scores of patient mules standing with drooping ears and waiting for their burdens to be removed. They were laden with everything that an inhabitant of Monterey could want to buy—milk, vegetables, fruits, fuel, hides, sugar, beans, wheat, iron-work, in fact anything and everything that has a place in a market. Donkeys are the beasts of burden at Monterey, and almost in the same category belong the cargadores, or porters, who are licensed and numbered exactly like cabs or drays in an American city. These men are identical with the Turkish hamals; they carry heavy burdens with apparent ease, and it is no uncommon sight to see one of them slowly creeping along with a piano, an iron safe, or a barrel of wine on his back, or a lighter burden on his head in the same way that the negro carries it. A gentleman who was stopping at the hotel said he had known a cargador to transport a safe weighing six hundred pounds without any apparent suffering a distance of half a mile without stopping to rest.
But the donkeys and cargadores do not have a monopoly of the local carrying trade, as there are great numbers of carts drawn by oxen, that have come in from the country with loads of produce seeking a market. These carts are of rude construction, and their axles are rarely, if ever, greased. They creak and groan in a manner that falls unpleasantly on the ear and often suggests that the vehicles are animated beings suffering beneath their burdens and endeavoring to make their grief known. And this reminds us of something which Fred remarked to Frank when the latter was wondering how the Mexicans could endure such a continued complaint of the axles of their carts.
A COURT-YARD IN MONTEREY.