420 



MEXICO. 



the clergy is about 10,000, half of which are regular and wear the cowl. Including lay broth- 

 ers and servants, the number may be increased to 4,000 more. Formerly they held large 

 estates in mortmain, but their possessions have been reduced from 44,000,000 to less than 

 20,000,000. The greatest riches were in charges left by the pious on lands, for pious uses. 

 These have been sequestrated both by Spain and Mexico. The greatest salary of any bishop 

 is 130,000 dollars, and the least is 6,000. The income of the parish priests depends much 

 upon the disposition and skill of the incumbent ; the tithes do not produce any regular or cer- 

 tain sum, and the chief support of the priests comes fiom marriages, baptisms, burials, and 

 masses. The marriages are celebrated with some pomp, and the fee for the priest, even from 

 parties of the lowest rank, is no less than 22 dollars, and this in a country where the houses of 

 the poor cost but 4 dollars, where the price of labor is a quarter of a dollar a day, and where 

 the church observances leave but 175 working days in a year. This onerous tax upon mar- 

 riages cannot but have an unfavorable effect upon public morals. There is little ceremony in 

 Mexican funerals, the body is carried away in a common coffin from which it is turned into 

 the earth. The coffin is used rather as a vehicle than a sarcophagus. Few monuments are 

 erected over the dead. There is, however, a bust over the tomb of Cortez. There is 1 

 archbishopric and 9 bishoprics, 7 of which, together with 79 benefices attached to the Cathe- 

 dral, are now vacant. The court of Rome has refused to present, under the political state of 

 Mexico ; but, should this refusal be continued, it is probable that the government will itself 

 assume the right of presentation. Almost every house has an image of the Virgin of Guada- 

 lupe, or of the crucifixion, but there are so few Bibles, that one is sometimes shown as a 

 curiosity. 



16. Government. The government is at least nominally I'epublicaii. After the prolonged 

 struggle with Spain for independence, the government fell into the hands of Iturbide, a Cre- 

 ole, who caused himself to be proclaimed emperor of Mexico in 1822. This short-lived em- 

 pire was overthrown in the following year, and in 1824 the Mexicans adopted a constitution 

 modeled on that of the United States. This constitution was not, however, sufficient to pre- 

 vent civil dissensions, and the sword was too often appealed to, to decide the claims of rival 

 chiefs or factions. But it preserved a nominal existence until 1835, when it was abolished by 

 a decree of Congress, suppressing the State constitutions, and establishing a central govern- 

 ment. Under this new order of things, which has only been partially established by force of 

 arms, the president is chosen by an indirect vote, and the departments, as the new divisions 

 are called, are governed by officers appointed by the national government. Several of the 

 States are still in arms in opposition to the execution of this revolution. Owing to the unset- 

 tled state of the country for so many years, nothing certain can be stated as to its revenue and 

 army. The want of good harbors and a seafaring population, will prevent Mexico from be- 

 coming a great rraval power. 



17. Antiquities. The ancient Mexicans, though they knew not the uses of iron, never- 

 theless constructed some of the greatest works of labor that are found upon the earth, — works 

 that in point of magnitude may be ranked with the monuments of Egypt. Few people, in- 

 deed, have moved such masses as the Mexicans ; the most prominent of their antiquities are 

 pyramids or mounds of a pyramidal shape. The bases, however, are much longer than those 

 of the Egyptian i)yramids. At Cholula the base is in length 1,400 feet, nearly double that of 

 the great pyramid of Cheops. The present height of the mound at Cholula is 177 feet, which 

 is more than that of the third pyramid of Ghize. The materials are unburnt bricks and clay, 

 in alternate layers. It is covered with vegetation, and looks at a distance like a conical hill. 

 It is of 4 stories, which diminish in size, having a terrace or platform around each. In cutting 

 through a part of this pile to make a road, a square chamber was discovered built of stone, 

 and supported by beams of cypress. It was perhaps a chamber of the dead, though there are 

 few funeral monuments in Mexico. 



There are many of ihese teocaUi or pyramids scattered over Mexico, and they have great 

 coincidence in form with the most ancient monuments of Asia. Some were constructed of 

 smooth stones ; in the Mexican cities they were as numerous as mosques in Moorish towns, 

 and Cortez gave them the same name. In the IVfexIcan valley are 2, one called the house of 

 the sun, and the other the house of the moon. The former has a base of 682 feet, and is 180 

 feet in height. The faces of these are nearly north and south, and in some other pyramids 

 they are exactly so. Around these two pyramids, are several hundred minor ones, disposed 

 in parallel streets. Near Tezcuco is the bath of Montezuma, on a mountain covered whh 



