WAX MODEL OF WATER-CARRIER.
All through their journey in Mexico the youths had been impressed with the little figures, modelled out of wax or clay, representing the various people of the country and their occupations. These statuettes are made by uneducated savages with hardly any tools, colored with native pigments, and baked in the sun or in primitive ovens. Water-carriers, porters, muleteers, mozos of all names and kinds, flower-sellers, beggars, street peddlers, basket-makers—all and many more are represented. The figures are generally covered with cloth tinted of the appropriate colors; but if not so tinted, the colors are wrought into the plastic material of which the figure is composed. Our young friends bought a goodly supply of these figures, and had them carefully packed for transportation. Fred thought they were fully equal in artistic design and workmanship to any of the figures they had seen in Japan, China, or India representing the trades and occupations of the far East.
ANCIENT INDIAN POTTERY.
Mention has been made of the pottery of the Guadalajara Indians, which is wrought into a great many fantastic forms. These Indians have great ability in portraiture; they will model in a wonderfully short time a statuette of an individual either from life or from a photograph. An enterprising American once planned to take some of these people to the principal cities of the United States and Europe, and open an establishment for the manufacture of statuettes of individuals at ten or twenty dollars each. His project was not carried out, for the reason that the Indians refused to leave their homes. The native Mexican is averse to changing his residence, and it requires a great inducement to take him away from his native soil.
The women show unusual dexterity with the needle, and their embroidery equals that of the natives of India and other Eastern lands. They display great industry and patience, and while seated in the market-place beside the wares they offer for sale their spare moments are generally devoted to stitching.
MEXICAN HOUSE MAID AND CHILDREN.