LETTER IV. 
XALAPA AND PEROTE. 
When the Neapolitans speak to you of their beautiful city, they call 
it, "a piece of heaven fallen to earth j"* and tell you to "see Naples 
and die /" 
It is only because so few travellers extend their journey to Xalapa and 
describe its scenery, that it has not received something of the same ex- 
travagant eulogium. I regret exceedingly that my stay was so limited 
as not to allow an opportunity of beholding the beautiful views around 
the city, under the influence of a serene sky and brilliant sun. 
The town has about ten thousand inhabitants, and is, in every respect, 
the reverse of Vera Cruz ; high, healthy, and built on almost precipitous 
streets, winding, with curious crookedness, up the steep hill-sides. This 
perching and bird-like architecture makes a city picturesque — although 
its highways may be toilsome to those who are not always in search of 
the romantic. 
The houses of Xalapa are not so lofty as those of Vera Cruz, and their 
exteriors are much plainer ; but the inside of the dwellings, I am told, is 
furnished and decorated in the most tasteful manner. The hotel in which 
we lodged was an evidence of this ; its walls and ceilings were papered 
and painted in a style of splendor rarely seen out of Paris. 
Before breakfast we strolled to the Convent of St. Francisco, an im- 
mense pile of buildings of massive masonry, and apparently bomb-proof. 
The church is exceedingly plain, but there is a neat and tasteful garden 
with a lofty wall. This convent also possesses a court-yard of about one 
hundred feet square, with an arcade of two stories, the upper part of 
which contains a series of spacious cells ; but the whole edifice has a 
ruined appearance, having once been converted into a cavalry barrack, 
where the bugle as often sounded the morning call as the bell summoned 
to matins. 
From the top of this conventual edifice there is a fine view of Xalapa 
and its vicinity. We could see the town straggling up its steep and 
irregular streets ; but much of the adjacent scenery, and especially those 
two grand objects in the descriptions of all travellers, the Peak of Ori- 
zaba and the Coffre of Perote, were entirely obscured by a cloud of 
mist which hung around the valley in a silvery ring, inclosing the ver- 
* " Un petxe de cielo eaduto tn terra.' 
