I was horrified by the appearance of the Church of Nuestra Señora de Loreto, built in the last century, which was as _désorientée_ and uncertain-looking as Mexican politics. Mr. de S. said the sinking was not caused by any disturbance of nature, but rather of man. There was a difference of opinion among high ecclesiastical authorities as to the materials to be used, so they decided the issue by constructing one of the walls of hard stone, and the other of a more porous kind, with the result that one side began straightway to sink. Now the dome seems to be pulled down over it, the whole looking as if it might collapse entirely at any minute; so we decided to visit it immediately, though it's always a wrench to tear oneself from the enchantment of the view in Mexico. Journeying up from Tehuantepec, I came across a passage in Amiel where he calls a _paysage un état d'âme_ not an _état d'atmosphère_. Here it is both, for the landscape is always wrapped in a wonder-working, almost tangible air, which is able to induce something mystical in the most practical or commercial soul. When we descended into the streets on our way to Nuestra Señora de Loreto they seemed particularly human and detailed, coming from that height, where everything had been a splendid _ensemble_. The dip in the long, little plaza is so apparent that you feel you may get the whole structure on your head. It was full of beggars hovering near venders of unhealthy, dusty, highly colored sweets, or hawking hard green fruits about. A green lime or orange can be a repast here. At the church doors the beggars were lying or sitting about, just living in their own particularly unconscious way, descendants of those _sin derechos y hechos_ of the old days, and not a bit better off now, in spite of all the "Libertad" and "Fraternidad" and decrying of Spanish and ecclesiastical government. A beautiful little boy, covered partially with the remains of a scarlet zarape and tattered white drawers which revealed rather than concealed his brown hips, carried, slung over his shoulders, two lively, coal-black hens that he had evidently been sent out to vend. Accompanying him was an old blind woman clutching at a corner of the zarape. It tugs at one's heart so, all this beauty and all this misery. We gave them "centavitos," and the little boy's flashing smile and the droning voice of the old woman--"_Dios te lo pague, niña_"--as she heard the sound of the money, were equally pathetic and mysterious. So often it seems a race of very old and very young here, nothing of the long maturity we know. An Indian with gray hair, however, is a rarity; some atavism when one sees it; and as they preserve their muscular activity till a great age, it's impossible to say how old, but the race gives a continual impression of just old and young. _February 6th._