PARK AND CEMETERY. 
2 35 
of-fact way, as is done in a Mexican burial place. 
There are three terms used in Mexico to denote 
a burial place ; — Cumpo Santo , Pant eon and Ceme- 
tario. There seem to be distinctions made in the 
use of the several terms, but they are too subtle to 
define without extending my present remarks be- 
yond their proper limits. Campo Santo seems to 
be of more generally rural or provincial use. 
Cemetario appears to be a word of comparatively 
recent adoption into the language, and its use is 
confined to a certain class of aristocrats. The term 
“Panteon” is almost exclusively applied in the 
capital, (and other large towns,) to intramural bur- 
ial places; and is also used more generally by the 
class of persons who have detached themselves from 
established religion. The term is evidently in- 
tended, in other words, to imply a pagan idea of 
death. This is more obvious when we take the 
Panteon de San Fernando, in the City of Mexico, as 
a type of burial place to which that 
term can be most properly applied. 
This Panteon is almost in the 
heart of the capital, and occupies ad- 
joining patios of the ruined monas- 
tery of San Fernando. Perhaps it 
might be well to say, in passing, that 
the Church of San Fernando, still in 
a good state of preservation and in 
use, has been identified as that into 
whose tower Grant carried a howitzer 
and assisted in the capture of the city 
in 1847. The monastery felt the 
heavy hand of the “Reform” move- 
ment in the middle of this century, 
which nationalized, confiscated and 
left in ruins all conventual property. 
Yet, curiously enough, the Panteon now existing 
within its cloisters, contains the tombs of those who 
were most active in this work of destruction. Presi- 
dent Comonfort and President Juarez are entombed 
there, together with many of their political adherents. 
And still more curiously, this Panteon contains the 
tombs of the two companions of the Emperor Maxi- 
milian in his execution. Miramon and Mejia rest 
within a fewsteps of the tomb of Benito Juarez, who 
signed their death warrant. The others who are 
entombed there are, for the most part, of the Lib- 
eral party, the adherents of the political views of 
Juarez. It may have been in irony that this spot 
was selected as the burial place of Melchor Ocampo, 
the great liberal patriot and martyr, ( “Sacrificado 
por la Tirania,” is the inscription on his tomb,) 
Miguel and Ignacio Lerdo y Tejada, Gen. Zaragosa, 
two victims of the Imperial decree of 1865, and 
others, whose presence, living or dead would have 
been offensive to the church, a quarter of a century 
ago. Undoubtedly it was intended to point some 
stern political lesson to those of future ages. 
The tombs in the patio are much crowded, and 
with one exception are of little artistic merit. The 
one exception is a notable one. It is the tomb of 
Juarez, the most admirable example of mortuary 
sculpture known to me. It well deserves a separate 
and more extended notice. The patios are sur- 
rounded by broad, covered corridors, and the walls 
of the corridors are filled with mural tombs, — - 
“oven” tombs, as they are called in New Orleans, 
— iq three tiers. 
The extra-mural burial places of the capital are 
numerous. Just outside the Tlaxpana Gate are the 
adjoining English and American Cemeteries. Nei- 
ther is deserving of especial remark, save that they 
conform to the law of neglect which pervades all 
cemeteries in Mexico. Of the others, Dolores and 
La Piedad are the most notable examples. 
Dolores is the public cemetery of the capital. 
It reflects, to the thoughtful observer, the religious 
indifference, amounting almost to paganism, that 
has grown in Mexico during the present century. 
Religious symbols are scarce within its gates. 
Standing at its entrance, and watching the funerals 
which chase each other in, as though there were 
some fearful plague in progress in the city, one sel- 
dom sees a clergyman accompanying a corpse, for 
the purpose of committing it to the ground in hope. 
The poor are brought in great numbers and hurried 
up the pathway to the place where grave diggers 
are kept constantly at work opening graves in long 
straight rows, which are filled in otder as dug. 
La Piedad is usually known as the French ceme- 
tery. It is by far the handsomest cemetery in the 
Republic, and almost out of the category in which 
I have placed the cemeteries generally. Probably 
it was at first the exclusive possession of the French 
Residents of the capital, but it has been adopted 
