At whatever hour you invite company, it will not collect before nine, and the most fashionable appear between ten and eleven. The music soon invites them to the waltz, or to the Spanish country-dance, both of which are graceful, and perhaps voluptuous, when danced, as in Mexico, to the music of guitars or of bandolines. They dance upon brick floors—there are none other in Mexican houses—generally bare, but foreigners have introduced the more comfortable fashion of covering them with canvass; and as the steps are simple, without the hopping and restlessness of our cotillons or quadrilles, it is not so unpleasant as would be supposed; they glide over the pavement without much exertion. The dancing continues, not uninterruptedly as with us, but at intervals, until twelve o'clock, when the ladies are conducted to the supper table, which must be loaded with substantial as well as sweet things. After supper, dancing is continued, and the company begins to disperse between one and two in the morning, and sometimes not until near daybreak.
None of the wealthy families have followed the example set them by foreigners. They give no balls or dinners. Although I have now been here six months, I have never dined in a Mexican house in the city. Their hospitality consists in this: they place their houses and all they possess at your disposal, and are the better pleased the oftener you visit them, but they rarely, if ever, offer you refreshments of any kind. It is said that they are gratified if you will dine with them unceremoniously, but they never invite you.
31st December, 1825. I can scarcely persuade myself that to-morrow will be New-Year's day. The weather is most delightful. We are now sitting with our windows open—at night too. About a fortnight ago the mornings were uncomfortably cool; but the sun at mid-day is always hot. What a delightful climate! And we are now eating the fruits of a northern mid-summer. We have always had fresh oranges since our arrival. A week since we had green peas; and to-day five different kinds of fruit appeared upon our table—oranges, apples, walnuts, granadites de China, and chirimoyas—the last, la reina de los frutos, (the queen of fruit,) tasting like strawberries and cream. The markets contain numerous other sorts. Our friends at home are now gathering around the glowing coals, or treading the snow without. We see the former in the kitchen only—the latter on the valcanoes which tower in the distance.
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7th December, 1827. A letter from home affords me the satisfaction of knowing that our friends generally continue to enjoy good health, and are subject to none other than the ordinary ills of life, such as cut-throat weather, squalling brats, or a twinge or two of gout or rheumatism. These are evils which humanity is decreed to suffer throughout the world; but in Mexico we are more exempt from most of them than elsewhere. The sun now shines twelve hours of every day, and either the moon or stars give light to the other twelve. Such will the weather continue to be until May or June, when the rains fall with such regularity and certainty, that very slight observation enables us to know when to go out, or to shelter ourselves. The mornings now are only a little cool, although we are in mid-winter; and our tables are supplied with fruit as bountifully as in the months of July and August. Our other ills are in like manner trivial. We are sometimes ennuyés for want of society, but books, and sometimes a game of chess, enable us to live without being driven to the commission of suicide. And as a dernier resort, we throw ourselves into the arms of Morpheus, this being the peculiar delightful climate for sleep—no mosquitos, nor extremes of heat or cold. The thermometer ordinarily ranges at about 70° of Fahrenheit.
SCENES FROM AN UNPUBLISHED DRAMA,
BY EDGAR A. POE.