d and no candles had been
burned, and for the repose of whose soul no masses had ever been said,
or other religious rites performed, and yet he slept as quietly as
those who had gone to their burial with the pomp and circumstance of a
state funeral. No priest had shrived his soul, his lips had not been
touched with the anointing oil, nor was incense burned at his funeral;
yet he died in peace, declaring in his last hours that he had made his
confession to God, and trusted in him for the pardon of his sins, and
refused all the proffered aid of priests in facilitating his journey to
heaven. Thus died, and here was privately buried, the first and last
Protestant President of Mexico, the only really good man that ever
occupied that exalted station, and probably the only native Mexican who
ever had the moral courage to denounce the religion of his fathers upon
his dying bed.

THE AMERICAN CEMETERY.

Adjoining the English cemetery on the south side is the American
burying-ground, which has been established since the war, where have
been collected the remains of 750 Americans, that died or were killed
at Mexico, and a neat monument has been erected over them. Here
Americans that die henceforth in that city can be buried. An
appropriation of $500 a year would make this more attractive than the
English cemetery, but the place has been wholly neglected by Congress
since that worthy man, the Rev. G. G. Goss, completed his labors. There
is a pleasure in observing the natural affinities which, in foreign
countries, draw close together these two branches of the Anglo-Saxon
family. A common language and a common religion overmaster political
differences, and the English and American dead are laid side by side to
rest until the judgment. At the south of the American cemetery is a
vacant lot, which the King of Prussia should purchase, so that the
Germans may no longer be dependent on Americans for a burying-place,
and that the three great Protestant powers of the world may here, as
they every where should, be drawn close together.

[Illustration: MONUMENT TO THE AMERICANS.]

Tacuba is a very small village, and is not in any wise noted except for
an immense cypress-tree, that must have been a wonder even in the time
of Cortez. Tacuba has the historical notoriety of being the place where
hostilities first broke out between the Aztecs and the Spaniards, and
the spot where the night retreat of the latter terminated. Here the
land is