In the city of Mexico the houses are flat-roofed, the roof bearing the
name of _azotea_. A parapetted wall, some three or four feet in height,
runs all round to separate those of the adjacent houses from one another
when they chance to be on the same level, and also prevent falling off.
Privacy, besides, has to do with this protective screen; the azotea
being a place of almost daily resort, if the weather be fine, and a
favourite lounging place, where visitors are frequently received. This
peculiarity in dwelling-house architecture has an oriental origin, and
is still common among the Moors, as all round the Mediterranean.
Strange enough, the Conquistadors found something very similar in the
New World--conspicuously among the Mexicans--where the Aztecan houses
were flat or terrace-topped. Examples yet exist in Northern and New
Mexico, in the towns of the Pecos Zunis, and Moquis. It is but natural,
therefore, that the people who now call themselves Mexicans should have
followed a pattern thus furnished them by their ancestry in both
hemispheres.
Climate has much to do with this sort of roof, as regards its
durability; no sharp frosts or heavy snows being there to affect it.
Besides, in no country in the world is out-door life more enjoyable than
in Mexico, the rainy months excepted; and in them the evenings are dry.
Still another cause contributes to make the roof of a Mexican house a
pleasant place of resort. Sea-coal and its smoke are things there
unknown; indeed chimneys, if not altogether absent, are few and far
between; such as there are being inconspicuous. In the _siempre-verano_
(eternal spring) of Anahuac there is no call for them; a wood fire here
and there kindled in some sitting-room being a luxury of a special kind,
indulged in only by the very delicate or very rich. In the kitchens,
charcoal is the commodity employed, and as this yields no visible sign,
the outside atmosphere is preserved pure and cloudless as that which
overhung the Hesperides.
A well-appointed azotea is provided with pots containing shrubs and
evergreen plants; some even having small trees, as the orange, lime,
camellia, ferns, and palms; while here and there one is conspicuous by a
_mirador_ (belvedere) arising high above the parapet to afford a better
view of the surrounding country.
It would be difficult to find landscape more lovely, or more
interesting, than that which surrounds the city of Mexico. Look in what
direction one will, the eye is furnished with a feast. Plains, verdant
and varied in tint, from the light green of the _milpas_ (young maize),
to the more sombre _maguey_ plants, which, in large plantations
(magueyals), occupy a considerable portion of the surface; fields of
_chili_ pepper and frijoles (kidney beans); here and there wide sheets
of water between, glistening silver-like under the sun; bounding all a
periphery of mountains, more than one of their summits white with
never-melting snow--the grandest mountains, too, since they are the
Cordilleras of the Sierra Madre or main Andean chain, which here parted
by some Plutonic caprice, in its embrace the beautiful valley of Mexico,
elevated more than seven thousand feet above the level of the sea.
Surveying it from any roof in the city itself, the scene is one to
delight the eye and gladden the heart. And yet on the azotea of a
certain house, or rather in the _mirador_ above it, stood a young lady,
who looked over it without delight in her eye or gladness in her heart.
Instead, the impression upon her countenance told of thoughts that,
besides being sad, dwelt not on the landscape or its beauties.
Luisa Valverde it was, thinking of another land, beautiful too, where
she had passed several years in exile; the last of them marked by an era
the sweetest and happiest of her life. For it was there she first
loved; Florence Kearney being he who had won her heart. And the beloved
one--where was he now? She knew not; did not even know whether he still
lived. He had parted from her without giving any clue, though it gave
pain to her--ignorant of the exigencies which had ruled his sudden
departure from New Orleans. He had told her, however, of his becoming
captain of the volunteer band; which, as she soon after became aware,
had proceeded direct to Texas. Furthermore, she had heard all about the
issue of the ill-fated expedition; of the gallant struggle made by the
men composing it, with the havoc caused in their ranks; of the survivors
being brought on to the city of Mexico, and the cruel treatment they had
been submitted to on the march; of their daring attempt to escape from
the Guards, its successful issue for a time, till their sufferings among
the mountains compelled them to a second surrender--in short, everything
that had happened to that brave band of which her lover was one of the
leaders.
She had been in Mexico throughout all this; for shortly after the
departure of the volunteers for Orleans, her father had received the
pardon we have spoken of. And there she had been watching the Mier
Expedition through every step of its progress, eagerly collecting every
scrap of information relating to it published in the Mexican papers;
with anxious heart, straining her ears over the lists of killed and
wounded. And when at length the account came of the shootings at El
Salado, apprehensively as ever scanned she that death-roll of nigh
twenty names--the _decimated_; not breathing freely until she had
reached the last, and saw that no more among these was his she feared to
find.
So far her researches were, in a sense, satisfactory. Still, she was
not satisfied. Neither to read or hear word of him--that seemed
strange; was so in her way of thinking. Such a hero as he, how could
his name be hidden? Gallant deeds were done by the Tejanos, their
Mexican enemies admitted it. Surely in these Don Florencio had taken
part, and borne himself bravely? Yes, she was sure of that. But why
had he not been mentioned? And where was he now?
The last question was that which most frequently occupied her mind,
constantly recurring. She could think of but one answer to it; this
saddening enough. He might never have reached the Rio Grande, but
perished on the way. Perhaps his life had come to an inglorious though
not ignominious end--by disease, accident, or other fatality--and his
body might now be lying in some lonely spot of the prairies, where his
marching comrades had hastily buried it.
More than once had Luisa Valverde given way to such a train of
reflection during the months after her return to Mexico. They had
brought pallor to her cheeks and melancholy into her heart. So much,
that not all the honours to which her father had been restored--not all
the compliments paid to herself, nor the Court gaieties in which she was
expected to take part--could win her from a gloom that seemed likely to
become settled on her soul.