LETTER VIII. 
THE CITY OF MEXICO. 
You left me retiring to rest at my hotel in Mexico, and- soundly did I 
repose after my last fatiguing ride from the mountains and over the plain 
to the city. I was roused, however, betimes by the clang of the church 
bells for early mass. This sound I had not heard since my visit to 
Italy many years ago, and it brought back to me many pleasant memo- 
ries, as I lay half awake and half dreaming, during the early hours. 
When I arose other recollections of Italy were excited. The wmdows, 
descending to the ground, of the brick-paved room, thrown open, let in an 
air worthy of Naples the beautiful ! It was the middle of November, 
but there was a May-mildness in the atmosphere. The sky was of that 
deep ultra-marine blue peculiar to elevated regions. As I ranged my 
eye down the street from my balcony, the town was alive with a teeming 
population ; the windows of the houses stood open ; fair women strolled 
homeward from mass ; old monks shuffled along in their cowled robes ; 
the butcher urged along his ass with its peripatetic stall hung around 
with various meats ; freshly-leaved flowers and trees stood in the court- 
yards, of which I caught glimpses through the opened portals ; and in the 
balconies lounged the early risers, enjoying a cigar after their cup of 
chocolate. It was a lively and beautiful scene, worthy of the pencil of 
that master painter of cities — Cannaletli, who would have delighted in 
the remarkable transparency and purity of the atmosphere through which 
the distant hills, som.e twenty miles ofi", seemed but a barrier at the end 
of the street ! 
The plan of the city of Mexico is precisely that of a checquer-board 
with a greater number of squares. Straight streets cross each other at 
right-angles and at regular intervals. The houses are painted with gay 
colors — light blue, fawn, and green, interspersed with a pure white, that 
remains long unstained in the dry atmosphere. 
The view of all these from the elevated tower of the cathedral, (to 
which I soon repaired after my arrival in the capital,) presents a mass of 
domes, steeples, and flat-roofed dwellings, frequently covered, like hang 
ing gardens, with flowers and foliage. Beyond the gates, (which you 
would scarcely think bounded a population of 200,000,) the vast plain 
stretches out on every side to the mountains, traversed in some places by 
