hered, and the thermometer gradually crept back
to a figure nearly as high as at noon. The fury of the storm was
followed by a sunset of rarest loveliness, eliciting ejaculations of
delight at the varied and vivid combinations of prismatic colors. One
does not soon forget such a scene as was presented at the close of this
day. The sun set in a blaze of orange and scarlet, seen across the long
level of the cactus-covered prairie, while soft twilight shadows
gathered about the crumbling, vine-screened walls of the old Spanish
church in the environs of Tula. Soon the stars came into view, one by
one, while the moon rode high and serene among the lesser lights of the
still blue sky.

CHAPTER VII.

City of Mexico.--Private Dwellings.--Thieves.--Old Mexico.--Climate.
--Tramways.--The Plaza Mayor.--City Streets.--The Grand Paseo.--
Public Statues.--Scenes upon the Paseo.--The Paseo de la Viga.--
Out-of-door Concerts.--A Mexican Caballero.--Lottery Ticket Venders.
--High Noon.--Mexican Soldiers.--Musicians.--Criminals as Soldiers.
--The Grand Cathedral.--The Ancient Aztec Temple.--Magnificent View
from the Towers of the Cathedral.--Cost of the Edifice.--Valley of
Anahuac.

As Paris is said to be France, so is the national capital of this
country equally representative, it being indisputable that the main
business and the social interests of the country all centre here. The
city derives its name from the Aztec war-god Mexitli, and is a large and
handsome metropolis, containing considerably over three hundred thousand
inhabitants, who embrace a large diversity of nationalities. In 1519,
when Cortez first saw it, the city is represented to have been nine
miles in circumference, and to have contained half a million of
inhabitants,--a statement which, we doubt not, is greatly exaggerated,
as were nearly all of his representations and those of his followers.
This capital originally bore the name of Tenochtitlan, and was
completely destroyed by the invaders, who established a new city upon
the same site. Cortez officially announced, three or four years
afterwards, that the population was thirty thousand. "For a century,"
says Charles Lempriere, an able writer on Mexico, "the city continued to
increase in numbers, wealth, and power, so that when Captain John Smith
and his followers were looking for gold mines in Virginia and the
Pilgrims were planting corn in Massachusetts, an empire had been foun