Everywhere we looked we found something that needed only to be framed to make a perfect picture, a dome (_media naranja_, half orange, they call the form), with its attendant belfry of reddish-gray lace against a hill, a group of Indians resting, with notes of red zarape, white trousers, peaked hat. Any spot can become a shop; there is just a spreading out of their wares, and though the _jefe político_ of their special pueblo sees that they don't vend without a license, at least there is no rent. [Illustration: A TYPICAL GROUP OF CORN-SELLERS Photograph by Ravell] The basket-venders, the sandal-venders, the pottery-venders, the water-carriers, the carriers of glass jars of precious pulque, were out in force, and the candle-trade was going strong, as we ascended the crooked, crowded way to the _patio_. The buildings about were crumbling and neglected, and the smell of the pungent messes the Indians put into their tortillas was mingled with faint whiffs of incense. Everywhere the tortilleras were busy patting up their tortillas, sitting squatted on their heels, occasionally on a _petate_ made from _tules_ (reeds), but they seem to prefer Mother Earth with their children tumbling about. We got through the crowd to the door of the church where clouds of incense, smoke from numberless candles held in pious hands, and a persistent, almost visible, odor of Aztec, _la race cuivrée_, further thickened the air. No one noticed us. When you may have come fifty kilometers on foot to worship a _Dios Todopoderoso_ a stranger or two doesn't count. They were kneeling thickly pressed around the high altar, bending, with their sombreros or their burdens laid in front of them, with their arms extended, heads raised, a grave, strange-eyed race, at the oldest of all occupations, communion with its Maker. Peons almost never sing, but a wheezy organ was playing, and the priest, whom I could just see, was giving the blessing after Mass. The _Ite missa est_ did not, however, empty the church as it does the temples of more sophisticated races, and it remained tightly packed. There are some old pictures, De Soto told me, of authentic date of the first period after the Conquest, but the church was somber, and they were so darkened by time that one couldn't tell.