Notes on the Language and Folk-Usage of the Rio Grande Valley (with Especial Regard to Survivals of Arabic Custom) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: BARBER-SHOPS. The peluquerias or barber-shops of the larger towns recall, in their neatness and good taste, the great care bestowed by Arabs upon hair and beard. Baths. No Mexican municipality which can possibly provide baths for the people neglects that solemn duty. In many of the smaller towns, these are noticeably fine and well arranged. There is an absence of unnecessary ornamentation, but no material comfort is forgotten. The baths are not free, the price being two cents for poor people, ranging from that up to dos reales, or twenty-five cents for the more affluent. For the smallest figure, one gets nothing but an abundance of clean, cold (or hot) water, and the tank to bathe in; for dos reales there are attendants at hand with towels, soap, brushes, mirrors, and anything else that may be needed; economy in varying degrees may be consulted in the intermediate prices. San Miguel de Allende is perhaps as good a specimen of what a Mexican bath-house should be as can be found within the republic. The attendants are very strict in preserving order and in seeing that each bather is provided with his own key and tank. One half the building is reserved for men, the other for women. Not a drop of water is wasted. After leaving the bath-houses, it runs down the side of the hill into a line of stone troughs, alongside which patient lavanderas are washing clothes from morning until night; from the laundresses it runs down into larger pools, where the casincas or sheep shearers and dyers are sousing sheep, great hanks of woollen yarn, and piles of blankets. Farther down, it is contained in an acequia deeply shaded by orange, lemon, banana, pecan, pomegranate, rose, willow, and oleander; next it courses through one of the streets, to keep it refreshed and free from du...