[Illustration: THE HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC]
It was nine o’clock when the white walls of Santa Clara gleamed before us. We saw a long paved street, ending in a little _plaza_ filled with great anciently-planted trees. Along the street were only high, bare, white, adoby walls, rarely the glimmer of a light shone through a small and high-up window. Midway along this street, we turned into a wide doorway and, passing through the low encircling building, entered a large stone-paved courtyard. The backs of thirty or forty pack mules, from the lowlands of the Pacific, were here being unloaded of cocoanuts, and salt and dried palm leaves for rope and mat-making. Drivers and stableboys were swearing melodiously in Spanish and Tarascon. There was everywhere great stir and nobody paid us the slightest heed. We halted and dismounted. Our _mozo_ Izus, took charge of our animals. A swarthy, burly Mexican bade us put our personal belongings in a little room, where was also soon set our baggage. He then locked the door and gave us a big iron key as evidence of possession. In another house, further along the street, we found an old Indian dame who gave us boiled rice, peppers, and a dish of stewed chicken, setting before us cups of boiling hot water and a small earthen pitcher of black, strong essence of coffee. A couple of spoonfuls of this, put into the water, gave me a delightful cup of fragrant drink, and a lump of the brown native sugar sweetened it perfectly. This method of making coffee I commend. Every housewife in Mexico roasts, grinds and drips through little flannel bags her own coffee essence. She keeps it always on hand. There is always hot water simmering on the clay oven, and it is only a moment’s care to provide the traveler with as much of the fragrant, vivifying drink as he requires.
In another house, across the street, we were bedded for the night. A single, large, high-ceilinged room off a big, airy court was assigned to us. The iron bedsteads were narrow, each with one thin mattress and no springs, but there were home-woven blankets to roll ourselves in and in the morning basins of beaten copper were brought us to wash in, with water poured from graceful ewers of like metal; evidences of the survival yet of a native industry for which this region and town have been famous ever since the days of Tarascon dominion. I endeavored to buy these handsome copper utensils, but my hostess would take no price, although I really offered her a great sum in my eagerness to possess them. They were heirlooms, she said, and too precious for money to avail.