two handsome churches, custom-house, town-house, market-house, arsenal, convent, jail, theatre, and governor's palace, built by the Spanish government. The Place des armes is a beautiful green, which serves as a parade. Most of the houses in the suburbs have fine gardens, ornamented with orange groves. The general style of living is luxurious, and the private dwellings are elegantly furnished.

It is upon the levee fronting the city that the universe is to be seen in miniature; it is crowded with vessels from every part of the world, and with boats from a thousand different places in the upper country.

The city of New Orleans will at no very distant period become to the United States, what Alexandria formerly was to Egypt, the great emporium of its commerce, its wealth, and its political greatness, in relation to the rest of the world; but it will also become the hot-bed of contagion, luxury, effeminacy, crime, treachery, and civil discord. The more we contemplate the present and prospective resources of New Orleans, the more inust we be convinced of its future greatness. Being in the form of a crescent, the curve of the river constitutes a safe and commodious harbour, in which there were in May, 1818, 250 sail of vessels; it is defended on one side by the river, and on the other by a swamp that no human power can drain, and no effort can penetrate, the city can only be approached through a defile three quarters of a mile wide, which being protected by a breast-work, manned by 5,000 men, (for a greater number could not act) New Orleans, in point of strength, is another Gibraltar, and bids defiance to the most powerful and best disciplined invaders.

In December 1814, the British made an attack on New Orleans, but were repulsed by the Americans under General Jackson, with the loss of about 3,000 men, killed, wounded and prisoners. The loss of the American army is stated at only 7 men killed, and 6 wounded.

MEXICO.

SPANISH AMERICA.

(Various Authorities.)

THE original city of Mexico, or, as it was called, Tenochtitlan, was founded by the Mexicans in the year 1325, and was situated in the valley of Mexico, and a group of islands in lake Tezcuco.

We

Ancient Mexico, when it was first discovered by the Spaniards, was a rich, flourishing, and populous city, the seat of government and religion, and the great emporium for all sorts of valuable produce. Cortez, in a letter to Charles V., states it to be as large as Saville or Cordovo; and he describes it as possessing all the activity and bustle of a commercial town. "The streets (he observes,) I merely speak of the principal ones, are very narrow and very large; some are half dry and half occupied by navigable canals, furnished with very well constructed wooden bridges, broad enough for 10 men on horseback to pass at the same time. The market-place, twice as large as that of Seville, is surrounded with an immense portico, under which are exposed for sale all sorts of merchandise, eatables, ornaments made of gold, silver, lead, pewter, precious stones, bones, shells, and feathers: delft ware, leather, and spun cotton. find also hewn stone, tiles, and timber, fit for building. There are lanes for game, others for roots and garden fruits: there are houses where barbers shave the head with razors made of obsidian; and there are houses resembling our apothecaries shops, where prepared medicines, unguents, and plasters are sold. There are houses where drink is sold. The market abounds with so many things, that I am unable to name them all to your highness. To avoid confusion, every species of merchandise is sold in a separate lane; every thing is sold by the yard, but nothing has hitherto been seen to be weighed in the market. In the midst of the great square is a house, which I shall call l'audiencia, in which ten or twelve persons sit constantly for determining any disputes which may arise respecting the sale of goods. There are other persons who mix continually with the crowd, to see that a just price is asked. We have seen

them break the false measures which they had seized from the merchants."

The ancient city of Mexico was taken by Cortez in the year 1521, after a siege of 75 days, with a prodigious slaughter of the inhabitants. In the course of this siege, the place held out to the last extremity; and the Spaniards were at last so irritated with its protracted resistance, that they resolved to raze to the ground the different streets as they got possession of them, for the purpose of facilitating their approaches to the main parts of the town. Thus the ancient Tenochtitlan was completely destroyed, and the present city has risen out of its ruins.

Mexico is the most populous city of the new continent. It forms a great square, extending from north to south, and from east to west, about four English miles. The ground on which it stands is quite level; the streets are drawn at right lines from each other, and being very spacious, appear in general rather deserted. The town is surrounded with a wall of uncemented stones; and the channels which lead from the lake, disperse their waters in various smaller canals, which flow through some beautiful streets, and are covered with craft and canoes, which appear every day loaded with supplies of fruit, flowers, and other produce, and make their way as far as the walls of the viceroy's palace, situated in the great square. There are different markets, where there is a regular supply of every thing that the public can require. The city is entered by seven stone causeways, three of which were built by the Indians. The others are the work of the Spaniards. The public buildings are magnificent, and some of them of the most beautiful architecture.

The convent of St. Francis has a revenue, from alms alone, of 20,000l. The hospital has a revenue of 10,0001. and supports 1,400 children and old people. The mint employs about 400 workmen, and is the most extensive establishment of the kind in the world. The principal manufacture is the working of gold and silver in all its branches. Large pieces of wrought plate, vases and church ornaments, are annually executed to a great amount. The city contains upwards 100 churches and

137,000 inhabitants, of whom one half are whites, and the rest Indians, mulattoes, and mestizoes.

cuco.

This beautiful city is supplied with water by two aqueducts, and its vegetables are raised on the elegant floating gardens of the lake of Tezcuco. There are three other small lakes in the valley of Mexico besides TezThe waters in these lakes used formerly to rise above their banks, and inundate the city and the valley. In 1629 there was a great inundation, which lasted for five years; and during the whole of that time the streets of Mexico could be passed only in boats. To prevent the recurrence of this evil various means were employed without effect. At first, a huge dike or mound of stones and clay was erected, 70 miles long and 65 feet broad; but the waters burst through it and tore it away. A subterranean passage was then dug through the mountains which surrounded the valley, to let off the waters; but the earth caved in and filled up the passage. length a drain, 12 miles long, 300 feet broad, and in some places 200 feet deep, has been cut through a gap in the mountains, and this seems to answer the purpose. The whole expense laid out on these great works from the year 1607 to 1689, is calculated 1,291,7701.

At

Mexico is undoubtedly one of the finest cities ever built by the Europeans in either hemisphere. With the exception of Petersburgh, Berlin, Philadelphia, and some quarters of Westminster, there does not exist a city of the same extent, which can be compared to the capital of New Spain, for the uniform level of the ground on which it stands, for the regularity and breadth of the streets, and the extent of the public places. The architecture is generally in a fine style; and there are edifices of a very beautiful structure. The houses are not loaded with useless ornaments. Two sorts of hewn stone, one a porphyry, give to the Mexican buildings an air of solidity, and sometimes of magnificence. There are none of those wooden balconies and galleries to be seen, which disfigure so much all the European cities in both the Indies. The balustrades and gates are all of Biscay iron, orna→ mented with bronze; and the houses, instead of roofs, have terraces like those in Italy and other southern countries. The general appearance of the capital of

of Mexico is much heightened by the majestic character of the scenery by which it is surrounded. Nothing can possibly present a more rich and varied appearance than the valley in which it is situated, when, in a fine summer morning, the sky, without a cloud, and of that deep azure which is peculiar to the dry and rarified air of high mountains, is viewed either from the top of one of the towers of the cathedral of Mexico, or from the neighbouring hill of Chapaltepec. A beautiful vegetation

surrounds this hill. From the centre of this solitude the eye sweeps over a vast plain of carefully cultivated fields, which extend to the very foot of the colossal mountains, covered with perpetual snow. The city appears as if washed by the waters of the lake Tezcuco, whose basin, surrounded with villages and hamlets, resembles the fine lakes of the mountains of Switzerland. Large avenues of elms and poplars lead in every direction to the capital; and two aqueducts constructed over arches of great elevation, cross the plain, and exhibit an appearance equally agreeable and interesting. Towards the south, the ground appears an immense garden of orange, peach, apple, cherry, and other European fruit trees. This beautiful cultivation is finely contrasted by the wild appearance of the naked mountains which enclose the valley, among which the famous volcanoes of La Puebla, Popocatepetl, and Iztaccicihuatl, are the most distinguished. The first of these forms an enormous cone, of which the crater, continually inflamed, and throwing up smoke and ashes, opens in the midst of eternal snows.

CUZCO.
PERU.

(Various Authentic Sources.)

CUZCO is the ancient Capital of the Peruvian Empire, in South America. It was founded, according to the common tradition, in 1043, by Manca Capac, the first Inca of Peru; and it is situated upon a rough and un

Inca, an appellation anciently given to the kings of Peru, and the princes of their blood; the word literally