Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/267

CH. XVII.] about it, like the cockney, who, in boyhood apprenticed, and afterwards settled for life, at the top of Ludgate hill, never beheld the inside of St. Paul's, whereas the Yorkshireman, who only once visited London, and that but for two days, had been to the top of the dome of it, and seen Westminster Abbey and the lions in the Tower, to boot.

Being thus obliged to rely upon my own observations, I was of opinion that the town had covered an extent of ground as large as the present site of Mexico, and about twice as large as that of the new capital of Guatemala. The houses were originally built of two stories, with richly carved friezes over the doors and windows; but the later erections are exactly according to the form prescribed by law, not exceeding eighteen feet in height, with one story only; on the same plan as those of the new city. The fear of earthquakes having passed by, (it is five and twenty years since the last