way down the Paséo is a fountain, around which two semicircles of coaches place themselves for a little time, to look on the passing current of carriages and horsemen. They soon disappear as the sun shows symptoms of descending behind the mountains. On Sundays the scene is more animated, and then the President, with his body-guard of lancers, and attendants in scarlet livery, is seen to dash into the Paséo, ride down and return through the Alameda, among whose trees and fountains the Sabbath crowds most do congregate.
One morning when all was quiet in this place of display, I rode down the street of San Francisco, and turned up the Paséo between the prison of the Acordado and the bronze horse. There was nothing to disturb the monotony that now reigned but cabs or omnibuses on their way to or returning from Tacubaya. Passing through the open gate of Belin, I rode along at the side of the aqueduct to the rock of Chapultepec.
CYPRESSES OF CHAPULTEPEC.
It calls up singular reflections to look upon a living thing that has existed for a thousand years, though it be only a tree. Though so many centuries have rolled over the venerable cypresses of Chapultepec, yet they still are sound and vigorous. The extensive springs of pure water that issue from beneath this immense rock have kept them flourishing in the midst of a tequisquite valley. Long gray threads of Spanish moss hang pendent from the extremity of their limbs and cover the lower leaves. These trees are the only living links that unite modern and ancient American civilization; for they were in being while that mysterious race, the Toltecs, were still upon the table-lands of Mexico—a race that has left behind, not only at Teotihuacan, but in the hot country, the imperishable memorials of a civilization like that of Egypt; and from them the Aztecs acquired an imperfect knowledge of a few simple arts.
These trees had long been standing, when a body of Aztecs, wandering away from their tribe in search of game, fixed themselves upon the