46 MEXICO 
possess an equipage. It is not thought " exactly proper"" for a lady ever to 
walk, except to mass — or, sometimes, when she goes shopping. The 
coach, therefore, on all gala days, is sure to appear on the Passeo with 
its fair burden, dressed in the French style, as^ for a dinner party or a 
ball. When I first arrived in Mexico, it was rare to see a bonnet on 
such occasions; but that awkward appendage of fashionable costume 
was becoming gradually in vogue before I left. 
For an hour, or more, it is the custom to pass up and down the sides 
of the Passeo, nodding and smiling at the cavaliers, who show off their 
horsemanship along the centre of the road. Here the utmost luxury and 
style are exhibited in the equipment of carriage and animals. Gold em- 
broidery, silver plating, and every ornament that can add splendor to 
harness and livery are brought forth. To such an extent is the taste for 
these exhibitions carried, that one of the millionaires of Mexico appears 
occasionally at the Paseo, on a saddle which (without counting the value 
of the rest of his caparison,) cost the sum of five thousand dollars. It 
was the chef d'ceuvre of an honest German saddler, who made it, and — 
retired from trade to his beloved " father land." 
On approaching this charming drive, the whole plain of the Valley of 
Mexico is at once revealed to you, without passing a dirty suburb. On 
your right, is the cypress-covered and castle-crowned hill of Chapulte- 
pec, formerly the site, it is alleged, of one of Montezuma's palaces ; before 
you and behind, stretch two immense aqueducts — the one coming from 
the hills, the other from a greater distance, near Tacubaya, and screening 
that village as it leans against the first slopes of the western mountains. 
On your left tower the volcanoes, on whose summits the last rosy rays 
of sunset are resting. 
The gay throng disperses, as the moon rises from behind the moun- 
tains, pouring a flood of clear light, bright as the day in other lands, 
over the tranquil landscape. 
The moonlight of Mexico is marvellously beautiful. That city, you 
remember, is 7,500 feet above the level of the sea, and nearly that 
number of feet closer to the stars than we are ; the atmosphere, conse- 
quently, is more rarefied, and the light comes, as it were, pure, and pel- 
lucid from heaven : you seem able to touch the stars, so brilliantly near 
do they stand out relieved against the back-ground of an intensely blue 
sky. Strolling on such nights in Mexico, when 1 saw the sharp lines of 
tower and temple come boldly out with shape and even color, almost 
as bright, yet softer than at noon-day, 1 have often been tempted to say 
that the moonlight you get at home (much as it is the theme of poets and 
lovers,) is but second-hand stuff, compared with that of Mexico. 
And so with the climates. Between the sea-shore at Vera Cruz and the 
volcanoes, whose eternal snows hang over Mexico, you have every climate 
of the world. 
In the Valley there is a perpetual spring. For six months in the 
year (the winter months, as they are called,) rain never falls ; during 
