- The National Museum.—Marianna and Cortéz.—The small Value of this Collection.—The Botanic Garden.—The Market of Santa Anna.—The Acordada Prison.—The unfortunate Prisoner.—The Causes of that Night of Terror.—The Sacking of the City.—The Parian.—The Causes of the Ruin of the Parian.—Change in the Standard of Color.—The Ashes of Cortéz.
MUSEUM.—BOTANIC GARDEN.—MARKET.
The National Museum has its weekly exhibitions, and attracts as great a crowd of the common people as does the Academy of Arts.
Here as perfect equality reigns as in the San Carlos or in the Cathedral.
The first object of interest is the large collection of stone idols which have been dug up from time to time in and about the Grand Plaza.
There are dog-faced idols, and apish gods, and unearthly things, besides the sacrificial stone, and a rude attempt to represent a goddess.
Whether or no this was a sort of Aztec Lady of Remedies I did not learn.
The Aztecs might easily have produced these works without exhibiting much civilization; but I have heard it surmised that they must have been among the plunder of more civilized tribes.
On the two opposite sides of the first hall we entered, I saw spread out the pictorial chronology of two dynasties that had passed away—the vice-regal line of potentates standing over against the royal line of Aztec emperors.