San Antonio more than anywhere else in Texas has an Old World atmosphere. The former Spanish capital of the province, there are parts of it that impart to the visitor much the same feeling that Monterey, that other Spanish capital, gives him in California—the feeling that _may be_ this is the United States, but it needs to be demonstrated. Of course, being a city of 100,000 people and commercially important, it has its well-groomed, American side, but unless you are in San Antonio merely in quest of health and comfort,[86] it is not that spick-and-span side that appeals to your traveler’s taste. You will prefer those streets, irregular and even unpaved (often their Spanish names still clinging to them), of the older quarters, where cracked one-storied adobes in open sunshine, elbow stately old tree-embowered mansions, whose tangled gardens seem to hide in their unkempt corners untold romances. You will like the Mexican quarter with its queer little shops, and the market square with its picturesque crowds of swarthy _peones_, donkeys and country teams of odd sorts, its squatting street venders of _tortillas_, cakes, _dulces_, songbooks, religious pictures and shoe-strings. You will like, too, the bridges over the little river that winds cosily about through the midst of the town, and the waterside lawns where trees cast a comfortable shade and summer houses invite to tea _al fresco_. There are literally dozens of those bridges, with railings at a convenient height to lean your elbows on and dream away an idle half-hour. Moreover, you will like the many charming parks and plazas, where you may sit under a palm tree and enjoy the passing tide of open-air life and make more acquaintances in half an hour than you would in New York in a year. The Main Plaza is dominated by the cathedral of San Fernando, which dates from 1738, though little of the original structure remains—most of the present building having been constructed about half a century ago. What is left of the original church is in the rear, backing on another and larger square, the old _Plaza de Armas_, or Military Plaza as it is now called.