Page:Life in Mexico vol 2.djvu/34

14 and above all sure that neither pleasure nor vanity will ever obliterate her remembrance from their hearts.

At matins, at vespers, at the simple board, at the nightly hymn, she will be missed from their train. Her empty cell will recall her to their eyes; her dust will be profaned by no stranger's footstep, and though taken away, she still seems to remain amongst them. . ..

As for the monasteries, not only no woman can enter, but it is said, with what truth I know not, that a Vice-Queen having insisted on the privilege of her vice-royalty to enter, the gallery, and every place which her footsteps desecrated, were unpaved. This was very Saint Senanus like, and pen galant, to say the least.

The finest convent of monks in Mexico is that of San Francisco, which from alms alone, has an immense annual rent. According to Humboldt, it was to have been built upon the ruins of the Temple of Huitzilopochtli, the god of war; but these ruins having been destined for the foundation of the cathedral, this immense convent was erected where it now stands, in 1531. The founder was an extraordinary man, a great benefactor of the Indians, and to whom they owed many useful mechanical arts which he brought them from Europe. His name was Fray Pedro de Gante—his calling that of a lay-friar—and his father was the Emperor Charles the Fifth!

Of the interior of this convent I am enabled to give you a partial description, but whether from hearsay, in a vision, or by the use of my natural eyes, I shall not disclose. It is built in the form of a square,