and Vida y Obras de Don José Fernando Ramirez (Life and Works of José Fernando Ramirez), the eminent literary man, historian, and statesman. The selections, which we here present, are from México Viejo. They do not as satisfactorily represent Señor Obregón’s style as longer passages would, as he is at his best when he narrates some ancient legend or describes some popular festival.
CHANGES IN MEXICO.
For some years past Mexico has been undergoing a slow, but evident, transformation. Everywhere the modern spirit modifies what is old. Customs, types, dress, monuments, and buildings are completely losing the long-fixed physiognomy of the colonial days.
The customs of our ancestors, half Spanish, half indigenous, are disappearing, replaced by a mixture of European practices, and now, in the same house, one prays in the old fashion, clothes one’s self after the French style, and eats after the Italian manner; one mounts his horse or enters his coach a la English, and conducts his business a la Yankee, in order to lose no time.
The fountains, those ancient fountains of the colonial epoch, have been replaced by hydrants and troughs at every corner, and the traditional type of the aguador (water-carrier) is eclipsed and forced to betake himself to those sections where the deep shadows of the electric lights fall, and where the precious fluid does not flow of itself, except when it pleases heaven to inundate the streets and alleys.
The china1 has died, to live only in the beautiful romances of the popular Fidel; the chiera2 yields her gay and picturesque puesto of refreshing waters, to the experienced señorita, who in high-heeled shoes and tightly-laced bodice serves us iced drink in vessels of fine crystal; the sereno,3 with his shining, varnished hat, his ladder on his shoulder and his lantern in his right