NATIONAL MUSEUM. 01 
quities, and odd, indeed, is the jumble of fragments of the past and pres- 
ent that bursts upon your view. 
In the centre of the room is a Castle and Fortification, made of wood aitd 
straw, with mimic guns and all the array of military power. This was 
the work of a poor prisoner— the labor of years of solitude and misery. 
To the left is a numismatic cabinet, tolerably rich in Spanish speci- 
mens and in a collection of Roman coins, which promises, under the 
care of Mr. Gondra, to become exceedingly rare and valuable. Next, 
there is a small library of manuscripts of the early missionaries in Mexico ; 
volumes of their sermons, poems, and records of marriages, births and 
baptisms soon after the conquest. It is astonishing to see how many took 
the name of Hernando Cortez. Next to this, again, is another case con- 
taining (among all sorts of antiquated gimcrackery,) some beautiful spe- 
cimens of the rag and wax-work, which I described in a former letter. 
In a corner hard by, covered with dust, lie the original drawings of 
Palenque and the volumes of Lord Kingsborough's Mexico, presented to 
this Museum by that munificent antiquarian. They are rarely looked 
at, except by some foreign traveller who happens to straggle into the 
Museum. 
The rest of the collection is valuable. In the adjoining cases are all 
the smaller Mexican Antiquities, which have been gathered together by 
the labor of many years, and arranged with some attention to system. 
In one department you find the hatchets used by the Indians ; the orna- 
ments of beads of obsidian and stone worn round their necks ; the mir- 
rors of obsidian ; the masks of the same material, which they hung at 
different seasons before the faces of their idols ; their bows and arrows 
and arrow-heads of obsidian, some of them so small and beautifully cut, 
that the smallest bird might be killed without injuring the plumage. 
In another department are the smaller idols of the ancient Indians, in 
clay and stone, specimens of which, together with the small domestic 
ALTARS and vases for burning incense, are exhibited in the following 
drawings: 
