with romantic elements,
and constantly picturesque.

On this evening, as the hour of the Angelus approached, the narrow
streets and the great squares were crowded with a humanity that
assaulted and captured the senses at once; so vivid and so various were
its component parts. A tall sinewy American with a rifle across his
shoulder was paying some money to a Mexican in blue velvet and red
silk, whose breast was covered with little silver images of his favorite
saints. A party of Mexican officers were strolling to the Alamo; some in
white linen and scarlet sashes, others glittering with color and golden
ornaments. Side by side with these were monks of various orders: the
Franciscan in his blue gown and large white hat; the Capuchin in his
brown serge; the Brother of Mercy in his white flowing robes. Add to
these diversities, Indian peons in ancient sandals, women dressed as in
the days of Cortez and Pizarro, Mexican vendors of every kind, Jewish
traders, negro servants, rancheros curvetting on their horses, Apache
and Comanche braves on spying expeditions: and, in this various crowd,
yet by no means of it, small groups of Americans; watchful, silent,
armed to the teeth: and the mind may catch a glimpse of what the
streets of San Antonio were in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and
thirty-five.

It was just before sunset that the city was always at its gayest
point. Yet, at the first toll of the Angelus, a silence like that of
enchantment fell upon it. As a mother cries hush to a noisy child, so
the angel of the city seemed in this evening bell to bespeak a minute
for holy thought. It was only a minute, for with the last note there
was even an access of tumult. The doors and windows of the better houses
were thrown open, ladies began to appear on the balconies, there was
a sound of laughter and merry greetings, and the tiny cloud of the
cigarette in every direction.

But amid this sunset glamour of splendid color, of velvet, and silk,
and gold embroidery, the man who would have certainly first attracted a
stranger's eye wore the plain and ugly costume common at that day to all
American gentlemen. Only black cloth and white linen and a row palmetto
hat with a black ribbon around it; but he wore his simple garments
with the air of a man having authority, and he returned the continual
salutations of rich and poor, like one who had been long familiar with
public appreciation.

It was Dr. Robert Worth, a physician wh