The coaches are filled with well dressed women—I won't say that many of them are beautiful—who recognize their acquaintances by a coquetish quirk of the fan—(a never-failing attendant even in coldest weather)—or an active play of the fingers, at which the Mexican ladies are very dexterous, and which might be misconstrued by the uninitiated as a beckon to approach. Horsemen, in the characteristic costume of the country elsewhere described, pass and repass, exhibiting their proud and gallant steeds; and the multitude on foot display their Sunday dresses, in which there has been of late a manifest improvement.
The canal is strewed with boats, crowded with passengers of the lowest class, who are amusing themselves with guitars, to which they sing and dance. They return decorated with flowers woven into a chaplet, which, contrasted with the black hair hanging down in a single plait behind, of a pretty Mestiso girl, renders her quite interesting, notwithstanding her copperish color.
All these in themselves present a highly exhilarating picture; but added to the fine prospect of the mountain barriers of the Mexican plain, and especially of the snowy peaks of the volcanoes of Puebla which rise in full view to the south-east, this scene can scarcely be equalled.
As pleasing however, as the scene is, and though we meet none but smiling faces, yet I cannot refrain from observing that remarkable inequality so revolting to the feelings of a republican. Marchionesses and countesses with the richest jewels, are seen at one glace with the poor lepero, whose all is the single blanket which hides his nakedness. Nor is it agreeable to see a strong guard of cavalry, whose attendance it must be presumed, is necessary to prevent disorder. Sentinels, indeed, are posted around and in all the public buildings of Mexico—they are posted at the entrance to the halls of Congress and to the galleries, in various parts of the palace, (a name by which the government house is still known,) where the President resides, and in which are the public offices—and they are posted even in the theatre. I am sorry thus to detract any thing from the scene which I witnessed this evening with so much pleasure, but candor requires it.
Lent has now commenced. Public amusements (except occasionally a concert at the theatre,) and large parties are suspended for a while. The ladies complain occasionally of ennui. Their present diversion is stupid enough. They assemble in small tertulias every night at each others' houses, and play an uninteresting game with cards, called lottery. The sole object achieved is to kill time, of the value of which Mexicans have no idea, for in themselves they have no resources whatever. Reading is so irksome they cannot endure it—and work of any kind costs labor. They can do naught but eat, sleep, smoke, talk, and visit the theatre.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
NATURE AND ART.
There is extant a beautiful tradition relative to the visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon, when she "proved him with hard questions," in order to ascertain the greatness of his wisdom and the acuteness of his ingenuity. She ordered before him two vases of elegant flowers—one natural, the other artificial, but of workmanship and colors so exquisitely beautiful, that to detect in them any unlikeness or inferiority to the genuine ones, seemed beyond the power of the human eye. They were placed in a lattice which opened on a parterre of the royal palace, the appropriated residence of swarms of bees, which were engaged in gathering their delicious food. The King ordered the lattice to be opened, and the gathering and nestling of the bees among the honied petals of the natural blossoms, developed at once the eye-defying secret and the ingenuity of the monarch.