114 CITY OF CHIHUAHUA. 
be said that is either very new or unusually 
interesting. When compared with Santa Fé 
and all the towns of the North, Chihuahua 
might indeed be pronounced a ‘magnificent 
place ; but, compared with the nobler cities 
of tierra afuera, it sinks into insignificance. 
According to Capt. Pike, the city of Chihua- 
hua was founded in 1691. The ground-plan 
is much more regular than that of Santa Fé, 
while a much greater degree of elegance and 
classic taste has been exhibited in the style of 
the architecture of many buildings ; for though 
the bodies be of adobe, all the best houses are 
cornered with hewn stone, and the doors and 
windows are framed in the same. The streets, 
however, remain nearly in the same state as 
Nature formed them, with the exception of a 
few roughly-paved side-walks. Although situ- 
ated aor a hundred miles east of the main 
chain of the Mexican Cordilleras, Chihuahua 
is surrounded on every side by detached 
ridges of mountains, but none of them of any 
great magnitude. The elevation of the city 
above the ocean is between four and five 
thousand feet; its latitude is 28° 36’; and its 
entire population numbers about ten thousand. 
souls. 
The most splendid edifice in Chihuahua i is 
the principal church, which is said to equal 
in architectural grandeur anything of the sort 
in the republic. The steeples, of which there 
is one at each front corner, rise over a hun- 
dred feet above the azotea. They are com- 
posed of very fancifully-carved columns ; and 
