Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 2.djvu/309

Rh Passeo Nuevo. It occupies a space of ten or twelve acres, enclosed by a substantial stone wall, which is surrounded by a deep and flooded moat. The gates are closed daily at the Oracion; and the spot is thus protected carefully from all improper uses as well as from wanton destruction. Around the whole of the inner wall, lines of substantial stone seats are erected, and, in front of them, an excellent carriage road affords a drive for those who are not disposed to mingle in the gayer circle of the passeos. Within this highway the plantations begin. Paved paths cross and recross the dense groves in a labyrinth of lines, while, at intervals, fountains and secluded benches break the uniform solemnity and quietness of the spot. In the centre of the enclosure, a massive fountain, surmounted by a gilded statue of Liberty, rises nobly in the midst of a broad area, whose top is almost domed with the arching branches of the trees, which admit a scant but lovely light through a narrow aperture, like the sky-light of the pantheon at Rome. The birds, unassailed for years within this grove, have flown to it as a sanctuary, and the branches are forever vocal with their natural music. Situated as it is on the edge of the town, and surrounded by houses, it nevertheless seems buried in the depths of a forest; and perhaps no spot, in America, is so fitted for the enjoyment of a quiet man, who can either take his exercise on foot or horseback, beneath the sheltering trees, or wile away his hours with book and pencil on the comfortable seats in the shady woods. It is the favorite resort in the morning of all classes who are obliged to rise betimes and go abroad for health. Students, priests, monks, lovers, loungers, dyspeptics, consumptives, nurses, and troops of lovely children resort to the Alameda as soon as the gates are opened, and study, meditate, pray, flirt, exercise, or romp, until their appetites or the sun warn them of the flight of time.

In these drives, in dress, dining, domestic duties, mass, and theatre the hours of a Mexican's day are chiefly consumed. This catalogue of "idle occupations," does not, of course comprise all classes, but includes that portion of the aristocracy which is every where set apart by its fortunate exemption from necessary toil. In a country so rich as Mexico this class must necessarily be large; and, if it begins the day in plain black, and on its knees in chapels, it ends its waking hours amid the blaze of dress and jewels in the family box in the theatre. In most of the countries of southern Europe, and in all their old colonial possessions, the theatre is one of the necessaries of life, and a box is as indispensable as a dwelling. It forms a neutral ground upon which all can meet without the