clay, which might answer the double purpose of images of saints or of heathen gods, according to the taste of the purchaser. But when they found me impracticable, they brought out their greatest curiosity—a flint arrow-head, such as used to be plowed up in scores near the place where I was born. Thoroughly disgusted with the sight of this Acropolis, with this ancient Athens of mud, I turned my horse's head toward Puebla; and as I rode on, I met scores of these modern Athenians trotting homeward, bare-headed and bare-footed, carrying "papooses" on their backs, while their faces, forms, and hair, and ragged dress, were the very counterpart of the Indians of North America.
The Indians of Puebla have long enjoyed the distinguished honor of being the governing men, while the white inhabitants were ineligible to a seat in the city councils. This city was formerly an Indian village, bearing the indigestible name of Cuetlaxcapen, or "Snake in the Water;" but, in 1530, the Vice-King Mendoza established here a Spanish colony, but left the original government unchanged; so that, down to the independence, the city administration was conducted by an Indian alcalde, assisted by a council of four Indians. Notwithstanding the anomalous form of its government, Puebla has ever been a great manufacturing town, and at this day consumes a quantity of cotton equal to some of our large manufacturing cities.