A SPLENDID CHURCH. 115 
in appropriate niches of the frontispiece, which 
is also an elaborate piece of sculpture, are to 
be seen a number of statues, as large as life, 
the whole forming a complete representation 
of Christ and the twelve Apostles. This 
church was built about a century ago, by 
contributions levied upon the mines (particu- 
larly those of Santa Eulalia, fifteen or twenty 
miles from the city), which paid over a per 
centage on all the metal extracted therefrom ; 
a medio, 1 believe, being levied upon each 
marco of eight ounces. In this way, about a 
million of dollars was raised and expended in 
some thirty years, the time employed in the | 
construction of the building. It is a curiou 
fact, however, that, notwithstanding the enor- — J 
mous sums of money expended in outward > 
embellishments, there is not a church from 
thence southward, perhaps, where the interior 
arrangements bear such striking marks of 
poverty and neglect. If however, we are not 
dazzled by the sight of those costly decora- 
tions for which the churches of Southern Mex- 
ico are so much celebrated, we have the satis- 
faction of knowing that the turrets are well 
provided with bells, a fact of which every 
person who visits Chihuahua very soon ob- 
tains auricular demonstration. One, in par- 
ticular, is so large and sonorous that it has 
frequently been heard, so I am informed, at 
the distance of twenty-five miles. 
A little below the Plaza Mayor stands the 
ruins (as they may be called) of San Francis- 
co—the mere skeleton of another great church 
Lee ees, eer 
