Sketches of the campaign in northern Mexico : in eighteen hundred forty-six and seven / by an officer of the First Regiment of Ohio volunteers.

DWELLINGS IN MONTEREY. 239
being supported by beams of imperishable mountain-cedar,
are covered with a hard and beautiful cement, in the manufacture of which the Mexicans have excelled for many centuries. But few of the mansions are more than one story
high, though the great elevation of that, being eighteen
or twenty feet with its crowning parapet walls, give to
the exterior of the buildings a hight quite proportional to
the breadth of the streets. The best establishments cover a
wide extent of ground and are generally arranged in a quadrangular form, the stables and offices occupying one side of
the square, with a court or small garden in the center. This,
as well as the building, is reached from the street by a single
large porte-cochere, in which a small door is inserted for the
convenience of pedestrians. These huge barn-like doors
and the few closely-barred windows,-so unlike our inviting
porticoes and bright venetians,-give an exceedingly cheerless and inhospitable aspect to the streets. The interior of
the dwellings, however, excite very different impressions.
In their internal arrangement, elegance and comfort are
often judiciously combined. From the wide entrance just
described, the visitor passes to the right and left, into spacious reception-rooms; the polished floors, lofty ceilings and
solid walls of which inclose a refreshing atmosphere even in
mid-summer. These front rooms generally communicate with
the more private apartments of the family, situated in the
wings of the building, all of which open upon a pleasant
arcade, that surrounds thepatio, or space in the center. This
comfortable appendage to the dwelling, affords the inmates
a secluded place for exercise or amusement. And while it