160 



SIX MONTHS TN MEXICO. 



has already been taken down, and I fear the 

 remainder must shortly follow. The situation 

 on which Mexico stood, till lately the centre 

 of a lake, must originally have been chosen 

 as a place of security by a few Indians, 

 incapable of defending themselves against 

 their more numerous and powerful neigh- 

 bours ; what a pity it is that it should ever 

 have been fixed upon for the site of such a 

 noble city as the present capital ! 



The Academy of Fine Arts had been 

 extinguished by the revolution: it has, at 

 present, neither student nor director. The 

 building and plaster casts remain, but its 

 revenues are lost; may we not hope for its 

 restoration ? 



Baron Humboldt has given us rather a 

 flattering picture of this subject, at the time 

 he visited the country : if his account was 

 correct, as indeed I have every reason to be- 

 lieve it to have been, twenty years of internal 



