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of roofs, have terraces like those in Italy and other southern countries.

Mexico has been very much embellished since the residence of the Abbé Chappe there in 1769. The edifice destined to the School of Mines, for which the richest individuals of the country furnished a sum of more than three millions of francs, would adorn the principal places of Paris or London. Two great palaces (hotels) were recently constructed by Mexican artists, pupils of the Academy of Fine Arts of the capital. One of these palaces, in the quarter della Traspana, exhibits in the interior of the court a very beautiful oval peristyle of coupled columns. The traveller justly admires a vast circumference paved with porphyry flags, and inclosed with an iron railing, richly ornamented with bronze, containing an equestrian statuet of King Charles the Fourth, placed on a pedestal of Mexican marble, in the midst of the Plaza Major of Mex ico, opposite the cathedral and the viceroy's

* 124,800l. sterling. Trans. See Chap. VIII.

This colossal statue was executed at the expense of the Marquis de Branciforte, formerly viceroy of Mexico, brother-in-law of the Prince of Peace. It weighs 450 quintals; and was modelled, founded, and placed by the same artist, M. Tolsa, whose name deserves a distinguished place in the history of Spanish sculpture. The merits of this man of genius can only be appreciated by those who know the difficulties with which the execution of these great works of art are attended even in civilized Europe.

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palace. However, it must be agreed, that notwithstanding the progress of the arts within these last thirty years, it is much less from the grandeur and beauty of the monuments, than from the breadth and straightness of the streets, and much less from its edifices than from its uniform regularity, its extent and position, that the capital of New Spain attracts the admiration of Europeans. From a singular concurrence of circumstances, I have seen successively, within a very short space of time, Lima, Mexico, Philadelphia, Washington*, Paris, Rome, Naples, and the largest cities of Germany. By comparing together impressions which follow in rapid succession, we are enabled to rectify any opinion which we may have too easily adopted. Not

* From the plan of the city of Washington, and from the magnificence of its Capitol, of which I only saw a part completed, the Federal City will undoubtedly one day be a much finer city than Mexico. Philadelphia has also the same regularity of construction. The alleys of platanus, accacia, and populus heterophylla, which adorn its streets, almost give to it a rural beauty. The vegetation of the banks of the Putomac and Delaware is also richer than what we find at 2300 metres (7500 feet) of elevation on the ridge of the Mexican Cordilleras. But Washington and Philadelphia will always look like European cities. They will not strike the eyes of the traveller with that peculiar, I may say exotic, 1 character which belongs to Mexico, Santa Fe de Bogota, Quito, and all the tropical capitals constructed at an elevation as high or higher than the passage of the Great St. Bernard.

withstanding such unavoidable comparisons, of which several, one would think, must have proved disadvantageous for the capital of Mexico, it has left in me a recollection of grandeur, which I principally attribute to the majestic character of its situation and the surrounding scenery.

In fact, nothing can present a more rich and varied appearance than the valley, when, in a fine summer morning, the sky without a cloud, and of that deep azure which is peculiar to the dry and rarefied air of high mountains, we transport ourselves to the top of one of the towers of the cathedral of Mexico, or ascend the hill of Chapoltepec. A beautiful vegetation surrounds this hill. Old cypress trunks*, of more than 15 and 16 metres† in circumference, raise their naked heads above those of the schinus, which resemble in their appearance the weeping willows of the east. From the centre of this solitude, the summit of the porphyritical rock of Chapoltepec, the eye sweeps over a vast plain of carefully cultivated fields, which extend to the very feet of the colossal mountains covered with perpetual snow. The city appears as if washed by the waters of the lake of Tezcuco, whose basin, surrounded with villages and hamlets, brings to mind the most beautiful lakes of the mountains of Switzer

* Los Ahuahuetes.-Cupressus disticha Lin.
† 49 and 52 feet. Trans.

land. Large avenues of elms and poplars lead in every direction to the capital; and two aqueducts, constructed over arches of very great elevation, cross the plain, and exhibit an appearance equally agreeable and interesting. The magnificent convent of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe appears joined to the mountains of Tepeyacac, among ravines, which shelter a few date and young yucca trees. Towards the south, the whole tract between San Angel, Tacabaya, and San Augustin de las Cuevas, appears an im mense garden of orange, peach, apple, cherry, and other European fruit trees. This beautiful cultivation forms a singular contrast with the wild appearance of the naked mountains which inclose the valley, among which the famous vol. canos of La Puebla, Popocatepetl, and Iztaccihuatl are the most distinguished. The first of these forms an enormous cone, of which the cra ter, continually inflamed and throwing up smoke and ashes, opens in the midst of eternal snows.

The city of Mexico is also remarkable for its excellent police. The most part of the streets have very broad pavements; and they are clean and well lighted. These advantages are the fruits of the activity of the Count de Revillagigedo, who on his arrival found the capital extremely dirty.

Water is every where to be had in the soil of Mexico, a very short way below the surface, but

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cuco.

it is brackish, like the water of the lake of TezThe two aqueducts already mentioned, by which the city receives fresh water, are monuments of modern construction worthy of the traveller's attention. The springs of potable water are situated to the east of the town, one in the insulated hill of Chapoltepec, and the other in the cerros of Santa Fe, near the Cordillera, which separates the valley of Tenochtitlan from that of Lerma and Toluca. The arches of the aqueduct of Chapoltepec occupy a length of more than 3300 metres*. The water of Chapoltepec enters by the southern part of the city, at the Salto del Agua. It is not the most pure, and is only drank in the suburbs of Mexico. The water which is least impregnated with carbonate of lime is that of the aqueduct of Santa, Fe, which runs along Alameda, and terminates at la Traspana, at the bridge de la Marescala. This aqueduct is nearly 10200 metres in length; but the declivity of the ground is such, that for not more than a third of this space the water can be conducted over arches. The old city of Tenochtitlan had aqueducts no less considerablet. In the beginning of the siege, the two captains Alvarado and Olid destroyed that of Chapoltepec. Cortez, in his first letter to

10,826 feet. Trans.

+33,464 feet. Trans.

Clavigero, iii. p. 195; Solis, i. p. 406.

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