lings and not to be compared in quality with the oranges of California; and bananas, from a delicious small banana, not larger than your thumb, to the immense plantain grande, which is cooked as a vegetable. The bananas are no better than those to be had at any New York fruit stand, for they are ripened in the same way-after they are cut.

In the rear of the municipal building, on the north side of the plaza, is the theater, a unique feature of the town. It is simply a stage facing upon an open court, or patio.

People attending performances bring chairs with them, or squat upon the ground. The plaza opposite is a beautiful little square filled with tropical plants, and has a band stand in the center. Every town in Mexico has its plaza and band stand.

But what interested us most was the market place, where pottery, meat, vegetables, leather goods, dry goods-nearly everything a Mexican needs for his comfort-were displayed for sale. The vegetables were divided into little piles representing one, two or three centavos * worth, and very often fruits or vegetables were cut to make the exact quantity desired.

IMPRESSIONS OF THE PEOPLE

Big sombreros of straw or felt, often trimmed elaborately with gilt and ornaments, were the chief characteristic of the men's dress. The remainder of the costume was in many cases not enough to remark about. The women were slovenly and ugly. I feel qualified to speak upon this matter, for Randall and I, both of a romantic turn of mind, looked into every face for one specimen of the "enchanting, dark-eyed señoritas" whose beauty is extolled by nearly every writer on Mexico, but failed in the quest. The eyes were dark enough, but so was the skin-almost as dark as that of our average southern negro-and the features were not good to look upon.

It is not entirely correct to say that the market place is the most interesting feature of the town. The policemen hold that honor. The first specimen I saw was leaning against a post in a nice, shady corner, puffing contentedly at a cigarette,

A centavo is a Mexican cent, equal to one-half cent United States currency.

and apparently quite oblivious and superior to his surroundings. He wore a dirty white cotton tunic, unbuttoned, dirty cotton trousers, a white peaked cap, and sandals. A big revolver, with its muzzle sticking out behind and below his tunic, and a club hanging listlessly by a string from his wrist, were his weapons of offense and defense. Listless, ambitionless, staring vacantly into space, with apparently no purpose in life but to hold up that post and pass away the time, he was the best representative of human vacuity of mind and official indolence I ever saw. He looked to me as though it would require a dynamite cartridge to blow a breath of activity into him. But I was mistaken in the gentleman. I approached him.

"Will señor permit me to take his portrait?" I asked, forgetting that English was a foreign tongue to him.

He did not move, but displayed some interest.

"Just a snap shot," I said briskly. "I'll have it published, and señor will be immortalized.”

He developed more interest, but I saw he did not realize his opportunity to be immortalized.

"I want to get your picture," I repeated.

He straightened up and said a few sentences in Spanish. He was becoming quite animated. When it dawned upon me that he did not understand English I looked around for Ramos to interpret for me, but Ramos and the others had gone on. So I tried again. The position was becoming rather awkward, and I put more stress and enthusiasm into my voice, in a vain hope that he might grasp my meaning:

"Just your picture; I just want to get your picture."

The policeman, now standing quite independent of the support of the post, pointed down the street in the direction the others had gone, and reeled off a whole string of Spanish at me. I thought he understood at last, and was inquiring whether I wished him to step out into the sunshine in the street. Bringing my entire Spanish vocabulary to my assistance, I said, very sweetly:

"Si, señor."

The result was magical. The policeman developed more life than I thought he was capable of. He clutched his club firmly,

and started up the street at a good pace after Ramos, Randall and the others. He thought they were malefactors, and I was telling him of some dark and bloody deed that they had committed. He was going He was going to run them in. In desperation I headed him off and shouted:

"No! No! Señor, photograph," at the same time unfolding my camera. A crowd was gathering and the situation was becoming strenuous for me.

The officer halted and smiled. He at last comprehended. "No" was very good Spanish, so was "señor," and "photograph" sounded very like the Spanish word for the same thing, and all this, in connec

There are no wagons or carriages in San Blas, and the horsemen and pack mules turn out for it. At nine o'clock in the evening, and every hour thereafter until daylight, you hear their whistles. As the clock strikes the hour the shrill, sharp tones of one sounds out upon the night, to be followed by another and another, like an oft-repeated echo, in the distant corners of the town, until all have answered. A policeman's wages here are thirty-two centavos a day (sixteen cents), and out of this he must live and provide for his family, if he has one. This, of course, applies only to San Blas. Each individual town has its own separate police system,

tion with the unfolded camera, made my meaning clear. The policeman stood still where I placed him, assumed the most soldierly pose of which he was capable, and I made my snapshot. I thanked him cordially, we shook hands, and doffed our hats to each other, and then he went back to lean against his post in the shade, quite a hero in the eyes of the admiring crowd which gathered around him to talk over the occurrence as I hurried on to find my friends.

In this little town there are seven or eight policemen. At night one sees them at the corners, their lantern, which they always have with them after sunset, standing out in the middle of the narrow street.

with its distinctive regulations as to uniform, wages and so on.

STRANGERS ARE WATCHED

Between the soldiers and police a pretty close watch is kept upon the movements of travelers everywhere in the republic. When a stranger secures accommodation at a hotel where no regular register of the guests is kept, he is requested to write his name, and where he last came from, upon a slip of paper. This slip is turned over to the police, and intercommunication between the police of various towns and the soldiers keeps the visitor well under the eye of the authorities.

San Blas, which stands at the mouth of the Santiago Rio, was founded by the Spaniards in the middle or latter part of the sixteenth century. The original town was built upon a hill which rises abruptly and prominently out of the low surrounding country. In the rear this hill has steep slopes to the plain, but in front, toward the ocean, it has walls of perpendicular rock, rising sheer from the plain below, as though reared by some gigantic hand to suport the once formidable fortress that stood upon its summit and whose glowering guns commanded the harbor at the entrance to the Santiago River, where the merchantmen that carried on the growing trade with the

But time works wondrous changes. Spain has fallen from her glory and lost her place among nations; the sea, which once broke against the face of the cliff, has receded and left the high bluff a full mile inland; sand bars block the entrance to the once active harbor; the shipyards have disappeared and are forgotten; the powerful fort, the great arsenal, and the once beautiful town lie in ruins, half hidden by tropical jungle.

Even authentic records of the establishment of the town and building of the military road have been destroyed, and tradition is all that remains-a tradition so intermingled with legends and impossible

Orient and the rich islands of the Southern sea took refuge, and where, in extensive shipyards, the men-of-war were fashioned which guarded Spain's possessions in the Pacific.

San Blas was then the gateway to the Pacific, as Vera Cruz was the gateway to the Atlantic, and Spanish enterprise-for that was in the day of Spain's glory and progress-built a great highway from port to port linking the two gateways and laying the foundation for a lucrative trade between the Occident and the Orient. It was over this road the artillery and military supplies for the fort were drawn, and over it thronged long mule trains heavily laden with Oriental plunder.

embellishments that a culling leaves almost nothing of reliable history. It is quite certain that the old town was not wholly abandoned for the new one, down by the water's edge, until after the revolution that freed Mexico from Spanish rule. When in Tepic, Mr. Eugen Hildebrand, the German Consul, showed me a book written by one James Colnet, an English whaling captain, in the year 1798, in which the captain tells of a voyage he made on the Pacific coast, in 1792, in search of the spermaceti whale. The captain was captured by the Spaniards and taken prisoner to San Blas fortress, which he describes as "on the south side of the Saint Jago River ('Santiago,' as we spell it now), and

contains the grand arsenal and dockyards of the province of Mexico. It is situated upon a small mount that rises in the middle of a marsh, which joins the dockyard about two miles from it. The face of the rock toward the sea is perpendicular, one hundred fathoms high, and presents a very formidable appearance." Captain Captain Colnet's estimate of the height of the wall is at least two hundred feet too great. Otherwise we are bound to accept his description of San Blas as he saw it, for, as far as I can learn, all official records were destroyed during the Mexican revolution, and no other record has survived.

LEGENDS OF OLD SAN BLAS

Though old San Blas has fallen into ruins, and no authentic history of its founding and period of prosperity and activity remain, one hears among the peons many interesting legends of those romantic days. One of these and it is devoutly believed by the aged peons-is the story of the translation into heaven

of the Padre Mercado, a patriotic priest of the Revolution. When Mexico entered upon her war for independence, the legend says, Padre Mercado warmly espoused the cause of his country. He roused the populace to arms against the Spanish oppressors, and personally led many fierce assaults against the garrison of the fort, with such results that the Spaniards learned to respect and fear him. But one day he was discovered unguarded in the streets of the town, his retreat was cut off, and he was pursued to the edge of the cliff. There seemed no possible escape for him, but just as the soldiers were about to seize him he rose in the air and disappeared in the clouds. The soldiers were terrified, and at once reported the occurrence to their superior officers. The sceptical commandant made a thorough search of the rocks below, where the padre's body should have been had it fallen over the cliff, but no trace of it was found. There was no other possible means of escape; the soldiers insisted that they had seen him ascend into heaven in a blaze of glory.