Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/235

Rh MEXICO 221 broad, well-paved, and gas-lit streets present a picturesque appearance with their quaint two- and three-storied stone houses gaily painted in white, red, yellow, or green, and terminating everywhere with a background of rugged sierras or snowy peaks which, owing to the bright atmo sphere at this elevation, seem quite close, although really 30 or -10 miles distant. All the main thoroughfares con verge on the central Plaza de Armas (Plaza Mayor, or Main Square), which covers 1 4 acres, and is tastefully laid out with shady trees, garden plots, marble fountains, and seats. Here also are grouped most of the public buildings, towering above which is the cathedral, the largest and most sumptuous church in America, which faces the north side of the plaza on the site of the great pyramidal teocalli or temple of Huitzilopochtli, titular god of the Aztecs. This edifice, which was founded in 1573 and finished in 1657, at a cost of 400,000 for the walls alone, forms a Greek cross 426 feet long and 203 wide, with two great naves and three aisles, twenty side chapels, and a magnifi cent high altar supported by marble columns, and sur rounded by a tumbago balustrade with sixty-two statues of the same rich gold, silver, and copper alloy serving as candelabra. The elaborately carved choir is also enclosed by tumbago railings made in Macao, weighing 26 tons, and valued at about 300,000. In the interior the Doric style prevails, Renaissance in the exterior, which is adorned by a fine dome and two open towers 218 feet high. At the foot of the left tower is placed the famous calendar stone, the most interesting relic of Aztec culture. The east side of the plaza is occupied by the old viceregal residence, now the National Palace, with 675 feet frontage, containing most of the Government offices (ministerial, cabinet, treasury), military headquarters, archives, meteorological department with observatory, and the spacious hall of ambassadors with some remarkable paintings by Miranda and native artists. Xorth of the National Palace, and apparently forming portions of it, are the post-office and the national museum of natural history and antiquities, with a priceless collection of Mexican remains. Close to the cathedral stands the Monte de Piedad, or national pawnshop, a useful institu tion, endowed in 1744 byTerreros with 75,000, and now possessing nearly 2,000,000 of accumulated funds. Facing the cathedral is the Palacio Municipal (city hall), 252 feet by 122, rebuilt in 1792 at a cost of 30,000, and containing the city and district offices, the corporation jail, and the lonja, or merchants exchange. Around the Plaza San Domingo are grouped the convent of that name, said to contain vast treasures buried within its walls, the old inquisition, now the school of medicine, and the custom-house. In the same neighbourhood are the church of the Jesuits and the school of arts, &quot; an immense work shop, including iron and brass foundries, carriage and cart mending, building and masonry, various branches of joinery and upholstery work, and silk and cotton hand-weaving &quot; (Brocklehurst). Other noteworthy buildings are the national picture gallery of San Carlos, the finest in America, in which the Florentine and Flemish schools are well represented, and which contains the famous Las Casas by Felix Parra ; the national library of St Augustine, with over 100,000 volumes, numerous MSS., and many rare old Spanish books; the mint, which since 1690 has issued coinage, chiefly silver, to the amount of nearly 400,000,000 ; the Iturbide hotel, formerly the residence of the emperor Iturbide ; the Mineria, or school of mines, with lecture-rooms, laboratories, rich mineralogical and geological specimens, and a fossil horse 3 feet high of the Pleistocene period. Owing to the spongy nature of the soil, the Mineria and many other structures have settled out of the perpendicular, thus often presenting irregular lines and a rickety appearance. Among the twenty scientific institutes mention should be made of the Geogra phical and Statistical Society, whose meteorological depart ment issues charts and maps of unsurpassed excellence. Besides the chief market south of the National Palace there are three others, all well stocked with meat, fish, and especially vegetables, fruits, and flowers grown mainly on the chinampas, 01 floating gardens of Lakes Chalco and Xochimilco. These gardens, which were far more numerous in the Aztec times, are formed by placing layers of turf on the matted aquatic vegetable growths to a height of 2 or 3 feet above the water, and securing them by long willow poles driven through them to the bottom, where they take root. They form plots 100 to 200 feet long by 20 to 100 broad, and are firm enough to support the huts of the cultivators. From the still extant illuminated tribute-rolls it appears that the Aztec rulers derived a large share of the taxes from these gardens, which at that time also covered the brackish waters of Lake Tezcuco. Before 1860 half of the city consisted of churches, convents, and other ecclesiastical structures, most of which have been sequestrated and converted into libraries, stores, warehouses, and even stables, or pulled down for civic improvements. Nevertheless there still remain fourteen parish and thirty other churches, some of large size with towers and domes, and their number lias now been increased by six Protestant churches including the Anglican cathedral in San Francisco Street. This is the leading thoroughfare, and is rivalled in splendour only by the new Cinco de Mayo Street running from the National Theatn to the cathedral. The city is supplied by two monumental aqueducts, from Chapul- tepec and the south-west, with good water at the rate of 44 gallons per day per inhabitant. Its industries are varied but unimportant, consisting chiefly of gold and silver work, coarse glazed and unglazed pottery of peculiar form and ornamentation, paper, feather-work remarkable for its taste and beautiful designs, toys, rosaries, crucifixes, religious pictures, lace, and some weaving. Mexico enjoys an equable climate, with a temperature varying from 70 to 50 F., but rendered unhealthy by the exhalations from the lakes and the bad drainage. The death-rate in 1876 was 59 per 1000, and 45 in 1878, pneumonia being most fatal (12 per cent, of the total). Standing at the lowest level of a lacustrine valley, 1400 square miles in extent, and completely encircled by hills with no natural outlet, the city has always been subject to floodings from the overflow of the neighbouring freshwater Lakes Zumpango and Xaltocan on the north and Xochimilco and Chalco on the south, which, in the 17th century, laid the whole district under water in 1607, and again for five years from 1629 to 1634. To remedy the evil the engineer Martinez began in 1607 the great cutting 13 miles long through the Nochistongo hill in order to draw off the discharge of Lake Zumpango, the highest in the valley, to the river Tula, a tributary of the Panuco, flowing to the Atlantic. This work, which cost the lives of 70,000 natives, was completed in 1789; but the result was not satisfactory, and the city is still often flooded. The chief public promenades are the Alameda, planted with stately beeches ; the Vega, skirted by the Vega Canal, and adorned with the colossal bust of Guatemozin, the last of the Aztec em perors ; the Paseo de la Piiforma, a fine avenue 3 miles long running south to the famous castle of Chapultepec, a place intimately asso ciated with the names both of Montezuma and Maximilian. The present castle, erected in 1785 by the viceroy Galvez on the site of Montezuma s palace, commands a superb view of the city and sur rounding district, and is approached by avenues of gigantic cypresses (Cuprcssus disticlui) dating from Aztec times, growing to a height of 120 feet, and measuring from 30 to 40 feet round the stem. Other good roads with horse or steam trams lead to Tacubaya and the &quot; Noche Triste &quot; tree, where Cortes is traditionally supposed to have rested after the disastrous retreat from Mexico on the night of June 30, 1520, to the pleasant summer suburb of Tacubaya, and to the renowned shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, 3 miles to the east on the border of Lake Tezcuco. Here stands the most famous church in Mexico, erected to commemorate the legendary apparitions of the Madonna to the Indian Juan Diego in December 1531, and still visited by thousands of pilgrims or sightseers. Mexico dates either from the year 1325 or 1327, when the Aztecs after long wanderings over the plateau were directed by the oracle to settle at this spot. For here had been witnessed the auspicious omen of an eagle perched on a nopal (cactus) and devouring a snake. Hence the original name of the city, Tenochtitlan (nopal on a stone), changed afterwards to Mexico in honour of the war god Mexitli. With the progress of Aztec culture the place rapidly im proved, and about 1450 the old mud and rush houses were replaced by solid stone structures erected partly on piles amid the islets of Lake Tezcuco, and grouped round the central enclosure of the great teocalli. The city had reached its highest splendour on the arrival of the Spaniards in 1519, when it comprised from 50,000 to 60,000 houses, with perhaps 500,000 inhabitants, and seemed to Cortes &quot;like a thing of fairy creation rather than the work of mortal hands&quot; (Prescott). It was at that time about 12 miles in circum-