barracks.  Then there are fruit-sellers and fish-sellers and hot-chestnut dealers, and, most vociferous of all, the cryers of “Acqua! acqua! acqua fresca!” There, making its way among the numerous small vessels from Dalmatia, Greece, etc. moored to the quay of the Schiavoni, comes a boat from the Peninsular and Oriental steamer, which arrived this morning from Alexandria, with four or five Orientals on board.  They come on shore, and proceed to saunter along the Riva toward the Grand Piazza, while their dark faces and brightly-colored garments add an element to the motley scene which is perfectly in keeping with old Venetian reminiscences.

T.A.T.

A NEW MEXICAN CHRISTMAS EVE.

It is Christmas Eve in Albuquerque.  Blazing fagots of mesquite-roots placed on the surrounding adobe walls illuminate the old church on the plaza.  There is a grand baile at the fonda, to which we and our “family are most respectfully invited.”  The sounds of music already invite us to the ball-room.  We enter.  The floor is full; a hundred couples are gliding through the graceful “Spanish dance,” or “slow waltz,” as it is termed here.  Not a few blue-and-gold United States uniforms are to be seen in the throng.  A full-uniformed major-general of volunteers adds the eclat of his epaulettes to the occasion.  The ranchos have poured in their senoras and senoritas, and three rows of the dark-eyed creatures sit ranged around the room.

The Mexican women look their best in a ball-room.  Their black eyes, black hair and white teeth glisten in the light; they are dressed in the gayest of gay colors; ponderous ornaments of gold, strongly relieved by their dusk complexions, shed around them a rich barbaric lustre.  Not that they eschew adventitious means to blanch their sun-shadowed tints.  For days some of the senoras and senoritas have worn a mask of a white clayey mixture to give them an ephemeral whiteness for this occasion.  Those who could procure nothing else have worn a pasty vizard kneaded of common clay, to effect in some degree a like result by protecting their faces from the sun and wind.  Should you visit New Mexico, and as you ride along slowly in the heat of midday meet a senorita who gazes at you with a pair of jet black eyes through a hideous, ghastly mask of mud or mortar, do not be frightened from your accustomed propriety.  The senorita is preparing her toilette de bal.

The New Mexican women cannot be considered pretty, generally speaking.  In artistic symmetry of feature, in purity of complexion, they are not to be compared with our countrywomen.  These can bear the searching light of day, when delicacy of detail can be distinguished and appreciated.  Those look their best in the artificial light of the ball-room.  There the blue-black hair, the brilliant black eyes, the well-traced eyebrows, the magnificently white and regular teeth, the richly-developed forms, produce a general effect