its splendid groves in the alamedas and paseos,—Mexico is, indeed, a capital worthy a great nation, as well as of the enduring recollection and praise of every traveller who visits it.
The plan of the city is as regular as that of a checquer board. Its straight streets divide it from east to west and north to south; whilst, nearly in the centre, the great square or Plaza spreads out for many an acre, surrounded by the chief edifices of the State, the Corporation or the Church.
On the northern portion of the plaza is erected—on the alleged site of the great teocalli, or pyramid temple of the Aztecs,—the cathedral, with its adjacent Sagrario. It is, externally and internally, an imposing building of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; for although its architecture is neither regular, classical, nor conformable to the rules of any distinct order, yet its massiveness and elaborate detail, impart to it a certain degree of effective grandeur. We have always found it impossible to receive, or impart an idea of architectural beauty or magnificence by description alone. The best writer can but catalogue dimensions and details, and his account is, therefore, always more of a builder's estimate or bill, than a picture which impresses our minds with a vivid image of the real object. We turn, therefore, gladly from the feeble pen to the graphic pencil, and refer the curious reader to the accurate plates which accompany this volume, for a better idea of the internal and external appearance of this sacred edifice, than we can convey by language alone.
Yet there are parts of the cathedral to which even the pencil cannot do justice. The floor of this magnificent temple,—made of loose and heavy boards, which are moveable at pleasure, in order to allow sepulture beneath them,—is the only part of it which seems neglected or shabby. Every thing else is gorgeous beyond conception, although the splendor is more colonially barbaric, than nationally classic. Profusion is the chief characteristic. It seems as if the priests and the pious worshippers had