Ii8 Ten Years of my Life. 



blood of the Hapsburgs in such a ferocious manner that on the 

 first night which the Imperial touple passed in Chapultepec 

 they had to fly before them, and pitch their beds on the open 

 terrace. 



The palace is a long, narrow, ugly building, standing on a 

 bare hill, which is enclosed by fortitications, through which leads 

 a very low and miserable staircase. The Emperor established 

 himself, however, in a pavilion standing on the utmost edge of 

 the rock, and containing only a itw rooms, but whence the 

 view is enrapturing. The whole valley of Mexico is before us, 

 and every house in the city is to be seen distinctly, for Cha- 

 pultepec is only half an hour's drive from it. The Cathedral of 

 Guadalupe, leaning against the ridge of Tepeyayac, is also 

 before us in all its splendour. 



The bare hill on which the vice-royal palace is built is sur- 

 rounded by a natural park, such as is not to be found any- 

 where in this wide world. What are the Central Park in New 

 York, Regent's Park in London, the Bois de Boulogne in 

 Paris, the Bieberich Park on the Rhine, the Prater in Vienna 

 — nay, even the pride of Berlin, the Thiergarten — what are 

 they all in comparison to this venerable and delightful spot, 

 with its Ahuehuetes trees, which were there already in the 

 golden age of Mexico, when still the benevolent Quatzalcoatl, 

 the god of the air, lived amongst the gentle people of the 

 Toltekes? Under the shade of these green vaults, even the 

 bloody conqueror Cortez's heart felt softened at the side of 

 his enchantress, Malitzin. There are still the basins where 

 bathed the many pretty Indian wives of Montezuma. On 

 entering this natural temple, a delicious shudder creeps over 

 your whole body, and you dare scarcely speak aloud. 



From the emerald green ground rise the gigantic Ahuehuetes 

 trees, a kind of cypress, of which the enormous branches 

 stretch widely out, and hang down like those of European firs. 

 They stand on a pedestal formed by the curiously twisted and 

 interlaced roots, from which spring forth their cord-like stems, 

 wound around each other as in a cable, but more irregular, 

 and forming thus the strange-looking trunks which have a cir- 

 cumference of at least twelve or fifteen yards. As if the green 

 of their foliage was not thought becoming to their venerable 

 age, the trees are covered up to their tops with a silk-like 

 silvery-grey parasite plant, hanging down in rich, slightly 

 curling locks. 



