Next is encountered the fruit and vegetable stands. The finest fruits and vegetables, and especially the latter, that I saw in Mexico, were right here in this market and this was in the month of December. Generally the vegetables in Mexico are not large, but here were fine potatoes, great red tomatoes, gigantic radishes and elephantine cabbages. Oranges, bananas, limes, plantains and pineapples were plentiful, as well as the less-known fruits such as _zapotes_ (a kind of melon), _aguacates_ (a pale green fruit and vegetable combined), granaditas, mangoes, granadas and pomegranates. The cocoanut of the hotlands is mingled with the _dunas_, the fruit of the prickly pear, of the higher lands. With these a great many drinks called _frescas_, or sherbets, are flavoured, the merits of which are announced by the dark-eyed, be-shawled vendors. The women merchants, many of them smoking cigarettes, sit around on the floor so thick in places that it is almost impossible to work your way through the mixed assortment of peppers and babies; corn, lean babies and peas; charcoal, beans and fat babies; naked babies, knives and murderous-looking _machetes_; hats, laughing babies, shawls and other useful articles; turkeys, crying babies, chickens, dirty babies, ducks, squawking parrots in cages, pigs and other live stock, including babies of all kinds and descriptions. The pottery market presided over by the solemn-faced, oriental merchants is a never-ending place of interest, and these artistic vessels are carried over the mountains on the backs of the Indians. Crude baskets and mats made of the palm fibre are found in abundance as well as brooms which bear no union label. No one could afford to miss the flower department where flowers are so cheap that it seems almost a sin not to buy them. Here are velvety sweet peas, purple pansies, tangled heaps of crimson and white roses, azure forget-me-nots, pyramids of heliotrope and scarlet geraniums. For a few cents one can buy almost a bushel of these, or, if preferred, can substitute marguerites, carnations, poppies, or violets. An American will probably have to pay twice as much as a native, even after the shrewdest bargaining. Outside the market enclosure caravans of over-loaded donkeys jostle each other as a great solid-wheeled cart yoked to a couple of meek-eyed oxen creaks by, or a tram car drawn by galloping mules thunders noisily along to an accompaniment of loud cracks of the whip, and a constant repetition of “_mulas_” and “_arres_” the “rrs” being brought out with a long trill. [Illustration: CROSSING THE RIVER ON MARKET-DAY]