182 SIX MONTHS IN MEXICO. 



Cortez. The present internal decorations 

 but ill accord with the magnificent houses 

 and palaces on which so many thousands 

 must have been lavished, and prove at once 

 the poverty of the present Mexicans and the 

 wealth of their predecessors. The massive 

 silver tables, staircases, and chandeliers, Sec. 

 have all disappeared ; the profusion of jewels 

 and extravagant equipages are no longer to 

 be seen in the streets, and the ensemble even 

 of people of the highest rank of the present 

 day reminds us in nothing of the authenticated 

 descriptions of the inhabitants of the same 

 place by writers two centuries ago. In the 

 year 1625, an English Dominican friar, 

 called Thomas Gage, found means to get 

 himself conveyed from Spain (with a number 

 of Religious who were going to the Philip- 

 pine Islands) to the capital of Mexico, and 

 thence to several of the provinces. After a 

 stay of nearly twelve years he returned to his 



