Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/76

 Turning westward from the square we reach the Alameda, by a very short walk through the Calle Plateros, a street filled with the shops of goldsmiths, watchmakers, French hairdressers, French cooks, French milliners, French carvers and gilders, and French print-sellers; and we pass on our way the rich Convent of the Professa or ex-Jesuits—and the more splendid one of the blue-robed Monks of St. Francis. The Alameda is a beautiful grove of forest-trees, planted on about ten acres of moist and luxuriant soil. The wood, which is walled and protected by gates closed every evening as the bells toll for Oracion, is intersected with walks and surrounded by a carriage road. Fountains fling up their waters where the paths cross each other, and the ground beneath the fullgrown trees is filled with flowers and shrubbery. The great centre fountain is surmounted by a gilded figure of Liberty, and gilded lions spout forth the water at its feet. This, and the other smaller jets, in pleasanter and more secluded nooks, are circled with stone seats. It is the fashion to come here in carriages and on horseback every evening, (except during Lent,) and to drive round and round the inclosure, on the soft roads in the dense shade, until the vesper bell—or, to draw up in line on the side of one of the highways, while the cavaliers pass up and down in review, or prattle away half an hour at the coach-window of some renowned belle.

But there can be nothing more delightful than a walk here during the early morning. There is a freshness then in the air, a quiet and peacefulness, that are found at no other time of the day. The student comes with his book; the priest, from his early mass; the nurse, with her baby; the sentimental miss, to sigh for her lover, (and perhaps to see him;) the dyspeptic, to earn an appetite for his breakfast; the monk, the lounger, and even the laborer, stop for a moment beneath the refreshing shades, to take breath for the coming day. It is almost druidical in the solemn stillness of its groves, placed in the midst of a population of two hundred thousand. Even the birds seem to have been made sacred; scared from the plains, they are here in sanctuary, and no profane hand dares touch them. They have consequently planted, as if by consent of each other, distinct colonies in different parts of the wood; the owl, sitting on her bunch, in one place; the doves, making love the business of their lives in another; the mocking-birds, making a third spot a perfect choir; and innumerable sparrows and wrens, like so many Paul Prys, chattering and pottering about with an intrusive pertness through the dominions of all the rest.

Directly west of the Alameda, and on the same street, is the Passeo Nuevo, another delightful drive of a mile in length, bordered with paths and trees, and divided by fountains adorned with statuary and sculpture.

Passing out of the western gate of the Alameda, the fashionables every evening take a turn or two along this drive. On festivals it is crowded. All the equipages of the city must be there, and it is the mode for every person of consideration, or who desires consideration, to