A Sunday in Mexico is one long feast of champagne, without a headache
the next day. When the first streaks of dawn appear in the east
people bob out from this street and that, hostlers hurry horses off
to private residences, gay riders whirl by as if eager to catch the
shades of night as they are sinking in the west, and by 6:30 it looks
as if all Mexico was on horseback. Ladies wear beautiful costumes, dark
habits, short skirts, silver and gold buttons, and broad sombreros. Men
display greater variety of costumes: some wear yellow buckskin suits
trimmed with gold or silver, others have a drab skin suit artistically
trimmed, still others wear light cloth suits and high boots, buttoned
at the side, and reaching the knee. A belt holding a revolver, and a
Mexican saddle to which is fastened a sword complete this beautiful
riding suit. And then what riders! It is the poetry of motion; they are
as but part of the perfect horse they ride. Take the beautiful horses,
artistic outfit, grand eyes glancing at you from beneath a pretty
sombrero, and you have a Mexican scene which is irresistible. Even
Americans are a thousand times handsomer when they don this outfit,
and it is safe to wager that if the men in the States would adopt the
Mexican riding-suit, there would not be a single man left after a two
months' trial.
After searching the whole city over we at last found a woman we knew,
who owned a habit. "Certainly you may have it, with great pleasure,"
and we thought what an angel she was until the time we needed it, when
she sent a reply: "My riding-dress is, as I told you, at your service
any day in the week but Sunday. I am surprised that you find need of
it on that blessed day." That evening on going to a house for dinner
we found her there, dressed to the height of fashion, discussing the
people who had attended church in the morning and telling what a lovely
drive she had on the _paseo_ in the afternoon. She is a missionary.
However, as the sun was creeping up trying to catch night unawares, I
mounted a horse, clad in a unique and original costume, to say the very
least, which the gallant young men, however, pronounced odd and pretty,
and wanted to know if it was the style of the States. The boulevard of
the Reform looked as cool and sweet as a May morning in the country,
and finer than a circus parade with the hundreds of horsemen going
either way. "_Vamos?"_ (Let us go). "_Con mucho gusto"_ (with much
pleasure), was our reply, and away flew our willing steeds, bearing us
soon to the paradise of Mexico--Chapultepec.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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