MEXICO. 



85 



dins striking, those presented by the capital are not less 

 so. In both its general plan and position, and the so- 

 lidity and grandeur of its details, it has impressed me 

 with a greater idea of splendour than any city I have 

 seen in either hemisphere. 



It covers with its suburbs an area of probably upward 

 of three miles square, occupying the central portion of 

 that extended oval which was covered by Tenochtitlan 

 at the time of the conquest. 



The Plaza Major, or principal square of the new city, 

 corresponds with that of the old. The cathedral is 

 based on the ruins of the great temple or Teocallis ; 

 the palace of Cortez, the Casa del Estado, rises on the 

 very spot on which Montezuma held his court ; and 

 many of the principal streets at the present day are 

 conducted precisely over the same ground as the more 

 noted of the ancient thoroughfares. 



You see the broad and well-paved way sweep through 

 the long vista of palaces and public and private edifices, 

 from one end of the city to the other ; and the contrast 

 between the bright blue sky above, and the screen of 

 mountains which form the background far in the dis- 

 tance, enveloped in the clear aerial tints of this transpa- 

 rent atmosphere, combined with the variety of colour- 

 ing and graceful proportions of the architecture, is more 

 magnificent and beautiful than I can describe. 



At the time of our visit, the city may be said to have 

 exhibited an aspect of extraordinary splendour, from the 

 circumstance, that in consequence of the ravages of the 

 cholera the preceding year, the inhabitants throughout 

 its limits had been compelled by public ordinance to 

 paint and clean their houses. 



The general style of building is regular and sym- 

 metrical in its outlines. The better houses are nearly of 

 the same height ; strongly built of porphyry or porus 

 amygdaloid ; rising to the third story, with flat roofs, and 

 having lofty apartments disposed round an interior quad- 

 rangle. At the same time, in the ornaments and details of 

 the facades, the style of the elaborate carving, the form of 



H 



