You are looking at the HTML representation of the XML format.
HTML is good for debugging, but is unsuitable for application use.
Specify the format parameter to change the output format.
To see the non HTML representation of the XML format, set format=xml.
See the complete documentation, or API help for more information. 
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<api>
  <query>
    <search>
      <p ns="0" title="Curulan Angelicos" snippet="...d &amp;quot;angeli&amp;quot; (messenger, or harbinger). As a name, it has the connotation of &lt;span class=&#039;searchmatch&#039;&gt;meaning&lt;/span&gt; &amp;quot;the gifted messenger&amp;quot;, or more verbosely &amp;quot;the messenger who has been grant&#10;" size="16559" wordcount="2792" timestamp="2011-01-21T21:53:19Z" />
      <p ns="0" title="James" snippet="...mally put no value into material items as he has no understanding of their &lt;span class=&#039;searchmatch&#039;&gt;meaning&lt;/span&gt;, sentimental or otherwise, unless he sees what the item does or is told.&#10;" size="10526" wordcount="1883" timestamp="2007-12-20T01:42:01Z" />
    </search>
  </query>
</api>