246 ITS ARCHITECTURE AND RICHES THE PALACE. 



plates which accompany this volume, for a better idea of the in- 

 ternal and external appearance of this sacred edifice, than we can 

 convey by language alone. 



Yet there are parts of the cathedral to which even the pencil can- 

 not do justice. The floor of this magnificent temple, — made of 

 loose and heavy boards, which are moveable at pleasure, in order 

 to allow sepulture beneath them, — is the only part of it which 

 seems neglected or shabby. Every thing else is gorgeous beyond 

 conception, although the splendor is more colonially barbaric, than 

 nationally classic. Profusion is the chief characteristic. It seems 

 as if the priests and the pious worshippers had designed to heap 

 up rather than arrange their offerings in honor of the Almighty, and 

 as if their piles of precious metals would form the most graceful as 

 well as grateful emblem of their religious sincerity. In the wilder- 

 ness of columns, statues, shrines, oratories, altars and fonts, the 

 traveller stands amazed and confused ; and leaving the pictures of 

 the church to demonstrate its complete effect, he retreats upon the 

 metallic standards which surround him, in order to convey the best 

 estimate of this queen of American temples. 



The exterior walls front upwards of four hundred feet on the 

 plaza, and run back about five hundred feet to the narrow street of 

 Tacuba. Entering the main portal, whilst the huge bells are 

 clanging in the two steeples above it, you face the choir for the 

 clergy, which is built of rare, carved woods, and elaborately covered 

 with gilded images, whose burnished surface flashes in the sunlight. 

 Beyond this is the high altar, raised from the floor on an elevated 

 platform, and covered with ornaments, crosses, and candle-sticks, 

 wrought in the precious metals. From this sanctuary, — extend- 

 ing around the choir, and probably near two hundred feet in length, 

 — runs a railing, between four and five feet high, and proportionally 

 massive, composed of gold and silver very slightly alloyed with 

 copper. And on the summit of the high altar rests the figure of 

 the Virgin of Remedios, whose dowry in dresses, diamonds, emer- 

 alds and pearls is estimated at not less than three millions of dollars. 



On the east of the cathedral, fronting the west, and bounding the 

 whole eastern limit of the plaza, is the national palace, formerly the 

 residence of the viceroys, and now occupied by the president, as a 

 dwelling. It is an immense quadrangular building, constructed on 

 the ground which it is supposed was covered by the palace of Ax- 

 ayacatl, in which Cortez was lodged by Montezuma, when he first 

 arrived in the Aztec capital. Besides affording room for the pre- 

 sident and his family, this huge edifice contains all the offices of 



