122 



SIX MONTHS IN MEXICO. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



City of Mexico— Surrounding" Country.— Its Streets.— 

 Houses. — Plaza Major Government House. — The Account 

 of the City by the writers of the Seventeenth Century. 



Nothing around giving any idea of the 

 magnificent city to which we were approach- 

 ing, all being a dreary silence and miserable 

 solitude ; can this, thought I, be Mexico ? — 

 have I then for such a place left home and all 

 that is dear to me ? — have I for this left all the 

 comforts of England, between which and me, 

 half the world at present intervenes? and 

 what have I gained in the exchange? We 

 arrived at the barriers, and, passing through a 

 division of the troops that surrounded the 

 city, entered the suburbs, which were still 



