Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/68

 from market; children, half-starved and naked, and women, whose wiry and uncombed hair gave them the mien of porcupines.

At length, as we gained the top of a little eminence our driver pointed out the "City of Mexico:"—a long line of turrets, and domes, and spires, lying in the lap of beautiful meadows, and screened, partially, by intervening trees, planted along the numerous avenues leading to the Capital. About two leagues from the city we came to the ancient border of the lake of Tezcoco, now a marshy flat from which the waters have receded. Here we mounted the Calzada, or causeway, raised about six feet above the surrounding waters.

This road is not one of the ancient avenues by which the city was approached, across the lake, during the reign of the Indians, but was constructed at great expense by the old Spanish Government. Although the land to the north of it is covered with saline particles that are perfectly visible as you ride along, yet the southern flats, being watered by the fresher stream from Chalco which flows through several apertures of the dike, are in no manner discolored. The northern marsh was covered with myriads of ducks, and looked as if it had been literally peppered with wild fowl. These birds are murdered in immense quantities with a sort of infernal machine, formed by the union of a great number of gun-barrels, and they furnish the chief food of the poor of Mexico.

Thus, about four o'clock, we passed this unprepossessing approach to the Capital, driving by the body of a man who had just been murdered, lying on the road side, with the blood flowing from his recent wound. Hundreds passed, but no one noticed him. At the gates we were detained only a moment for examination, and we entered the city by the Puerta de San Lazaro. A saint who suffered from impure blood, and presides over sores, may well be the patron of that portal and portion of the suburbs through which we jolted over disjoined pavements, while the water lay green and putrid in the stagnant gutter, festering in the middle of close streets, swarmed with ragged thousands. As I looked at them from our window, they seemed more like a population of witches, freshly dismounted from their broomsticks, than anything else to which, in fancy, I can readily compare them.

But the journey ended as we drove to the hotel Vergara, where a dirty court-yard, filled with sheep, chickens, horses, bath-houses, and a blacksmith's shop, received our jaded crew. I found that a kind friend had already prepared rooms for me, where, after a bath and dinner, I was made as comfortable as possible, by the attentions of a hospitable land-lady.