the overflowings of the lake. This city has
six principal _gates_; and is surrounded by a ditch, but is without
walls.

The objects which chiefly attract the attention of strangers, are 1. The
_Cathedral_, which is partly in the Gothic style of architecture, and
has two towers, ornamented with pilasters and statues, of very beautiful
symmetry. 2. The _Treasury_, which adjoins to the palace of the
viceroys: from this building, since the beginning of the 16th century,
more than 270 millions sterling, in gold and silver coin, have been
issued. 3. The _Convents_. 4. The _Hospital_, or rather the two united
hospitals, of which one maintains six hundred, and the other eight
hundred children and old people. 5. The _Acordada_, a fine edifice, of
which the prisons are spacious and well aired. 6. The _School of Mines_.
7. The _Botanical Garden_, in one of the courts of the viceroy's palace.
8. The edifices of the _University_ and the _Public Library_, which,
however, are very unworthy of so great and ancient an establishment. 9.
The _Academy of Fine Arts_.

Mexico is the see of an archbishop, and contains twenty-three convents
for monks, and fifteen for nuns. Its whole population is estimated at
one hundred and forty thousand persons.

On the north-side of the city, near the suburbs, is a _public walk_,
which forms a large square, having a basin in the middle, and where
eight walks terminate.

The _markets_ of Mexico are well supplied with eatables; particularly
with roots and fruit. It is an interesting spectacle, which may be
enjoyed every morning at sunrise, to see these provisions, and a great
quantity of flowers, brought by Indians, in boats, along the canals.
Most of the roots are cultivated on what are called _chinampas_, or
"floating gardens." These are of two sorts: one moveable, and driven
about by the winds, and the other fixed and attached to the shore. The
first alone merit the denomination of floating-gardens.

Simple lumps of earth, in lakes or rivers, carried away from the banks,
have given rise to the invention of chinampas. The floating-gardens, of
which very many were found by the Spaniards, when they first invaded
Mexico, and of which many still exist in the lake of Chalco, were rafts
formed of reeds, rushes, roots, and branches of underwood. The Indians
cover these light and well connected materials with a black mould, which
becomes extremely fertile. The chinampas sometimes contain the cottage
of the I