The white, flat-roofed, terraced houses--each one in its flowery court--and the domes and spires of the Missions, with their gilded crosses, had a mirage-like beauty in the rare, soft atmosphere, as if a dream of Old Spain had been materialized in a wilderness of the New World.
But human life in all its essentials was in San Antonio, as it was and has been in all other cities since the world began.

Women were in their homes, dressing and cooking, nursing their children and dreaming of their lovers.

Men were in the market-places, buying and selling, talking of politics and anticipating war.

And yet in spite of these fixed attributes, San Antonio was a city penetrated 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.