Show I 1 OLD afi its bouse and in STREETS OF THE CITY the building of the E ew and american santa lic buildings ENQUIRER correspondences SANTA FE june 28 1891 if the impressions received since coming into this ancient city now in a tumultuous conflict in my mind will but settle into some definite order I 1 shall attempt to give the readers of the the benefit of them 1 am seated in the shade of a native quaking asp in the center of the or public square which is fenced with alka leading aiom the centre to the four corners aart the middle of fach side making eight cone awards banked by trees somo of them evidently as old as the town itself rustic settees can be seen ander every tree awhile in the center is a rather pretty monument to the heroes fallen in the late rebellion and in the various skirmishes with the indiana hard by is a fountain where the water oozes from crevices in a natural upright boul derand flows down its mossy sides watering a fringe of rans as it dips into the basin thia to my mind eclipsed eclips ea in artis itic designs any thiap produced by tho chisel or tho foundry 3 on the north and partly on the east of this plaza are to be seen still the inevitable mexican mud wall frost but modernized however by being imitation brick and having a porch surmounted by a paling on the other side of the square rise the magnificent and irregular business fronts familar to every american city if you would have in one word the chief feature of every mexican town from the smallest hamlet to the city of mexico itself you will take particular note of this plaza in the meaner villages it is merely a blank space fenced in by what appears at first as four mud walls about ten feet high with two or three openings barely wide enouse to let a wagon pass by a second look you see wooden spouts projecting from the top to carry olathe rain and then every two or three rods a four foot high door and sometimes though rarely a window and it dawns upon you that here is where they live if you are not convinced of this at once you will be shortly when a dozen doors open a dezen ugly cura bounce toward you from all sides and each open door is filled with eight or ten swarthy heads whose glittering glitt erine eyes and black unkempt locks remind you of a certain circle in dantes inferno on a closer approach to these walks you will find them carefully plastered with mud containing chaff a work which mexican women attend to with the same illious pride that the american woman takes in keeping her kitchen clean probably your curiosity has been satisfied on the outside and you do not like risking the necessity of having to hold your nose before these people by going inside if you are brave enough however you will be most agreeably surprised the first thing that strikes you is the mud floor packed by some process hard as cement here and there will be seen strips of bauve made carpet ft and mats of goat skin in the corners are rolls of bedding but you see no furniture you are probably led through three or four rooms they all run in a string and finally giyen a goods box to ait down on by this time your nostrils have detected the agreeable smell of fresh lime or at any rate a smell similar to th a good rain in dusty weather and you areundo to find the walla white as snow with a streak of brown suggesting wain below everything looks neat and tidy on looking up at the people your admiration changes again to disgust these mexicans have the same horror of soap and water for which their indian cousins are eo noted indeed they have a superstition that if a sick person touches water he is almost sure to die then you see something else that frightens you nearly every face is pock marked and the clean house and smell of fresh lime do not your terror when you know that these people look upon this dreadful disease as a god given luxury to their race that noaa need try to escape nay that to try to avoid it is to fly i the face of providence aa you leave the plaza cousee in every running at right angles with the ferrit wall and others at right angles willi chegu again these represent analogous growths of the population when two young mexicans get one of the first things is to examine the walls of the plaza for a place to build an extension for there adems to be no recognized right in real estate oh unoccupied land title to a building spot is acquired by building on it you can thus form some conception of how primitive are the ideas of these people yet I 1 know of no region more interesting to the rambling student but new santa ft is rapidly growing out of old santa fe twenty five years hence I 1 fear it will be a poor haunt for a washington T vine though were he living now it is difficult to tell where he would be more richly rewarded in his search for antiquated and historic haunts of humanity foe thin city scans distance between the electa ic light and the don otes and within its curious walls muse be found some relic ot every epoch even from the das of the aztec supremacy bui nature in our day seems to have caught the levered excitement of her own fertility and produces no more lazy good humored irvings to hold wisdom in contempt and write only for our pleasure and entertainment nor am I 1 certain that another irving would find an audience in this electric ago neither am I 1 certain that you follow my thoughts with any interest whey they stray after the moon beams the theme is santa fe and you expect me to etick to it I 1 shall ark you to taace a look at sana fe from the bell tower of st josephs cathedral against the eastern horizon loom up alie rocky mountains afe rising to the dignity of quaking asp pine and snow there sinking ta tho vulgarity of crab cedar on the southeast the view is unbroken and on the west and north are rolling cedar clad hills santa fe as a whole is to one cay at a quarter ot a mile pem pirt cyp by which I 1 mean that it covers lees than naif the found f of for so old a city it is shabbily devoid of orchards it is only where american houses display their handsome architecture that we see verdure at all old santa fe lies huddled closely around tho plaza ane could plow and sow about ten acres of bub soil on the roots of those mud builders in fact one can almost pen aade himself that his extended roof apace is the natural level with here and there a gaily cut through it for a street these flat dirt roofs are deemed ex cellena dumping grounds for garbage and in some places vegetation grows rank the only thing lacking to complete a truly mexican scene is a herd of omnivorous goats which are so numer ous in neighboring towns but these mud flats are doomed already here and there handsome brick business blocks are reared right in their midst and atia only a question of time when the visitor will have to drive out of the city to see them in remote towns and villages they are likely to remain till the end of time taken all in all santa fe is rather a picturesque city picturesque on account of its very irregularity its lun in every aire cuon ana many of them ara ec arcely wider than our eide walk A score of huge buildings each costing upward of a hundred thousand boom up in parts of the city tike eo many whales in shoals of herring santafe has certainly laid hold of the lions share in public buildings here are the capital the university the penitentiary three indian schools half a dozen catholic institutions and the headquarters of other missions by the by three of the catholic sisters fellow passengers the other day one of them surprisingly young and pretty for a convent which one ia accustomed to think of as a kind of refuge for poor creatures guilty of being ugly this fair lady did not fail to exhibit the crateful Krate ful trait of all tair creatures that of being decidedly flirta tive try as sue would she could not keep theao glorious Rl orious eyes within the shades of her black cowl or avoid showing a perfect set of ivory in an anchan ing amaie ana men sucu silvery voice she jooa had a bevy of ad made up of passengers and train men who gath ered op the forbidden sunshine I 1 sat at a respectful distance taking notes but a reflected beam now and then reached even me so that I 1 could but feel sorry that so much freshness and vivacity should wither away in a convent but probably after al 1 the convent is not such a gloomy place certainly not judging from the outside and if it were so what bould induce such a creature to enter or how could she be prevailed upon to grow old there N L N since closing this letter I 1 am tempted to add another paragraph I 1 am sitting on one of the long extended porches facing the plaza and am made happily aware of a new use to which this public park can be put before me the beauty and chivalry of santa fe are gathered the occasion being a concert by the college band I 1 see nothing in the concert that cannot be excelled in provo but no better opportunity could be afforded of seeing the much famed dark eyed seno ritaa of spanish descent in examining faces one cannot help but be struck by the mental superiority of the american race in fact the superiority perio rity of the thorough bred over the mustang pony and american structures over the mexican mud hovels is only repeated and emphasized when the yankee is placed along bide his olive hued yellow citizen remember I 1 do not indicate the whole race there are many shrewd excel eions but taking the whole generally I 1 fear and tremble for them I 1 hey are bound to become the serfs figuratively speaking of tho northern invaders already they have seen their pal days in future they will be the bedara of wood and drawers of water N L N |