Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/122

114 nothing to which they can be adjusted. Cincinnati, held in a pocket of hills, is much more easily grasped than Chicago, on a walless prairie. Jerusalem is seen at a glance, despite its crooked and narrow alleys, for it is on a hill-top, with higher hills inclosing it. But Mexico is pre-eminent in this respect. You know the town at a glance. There are large portions of it I have not visited, yet I have seemed to see it all at any corner. There it lies, each four of the ways straight to the mountains.

It is not crooked. Every thoroughfare is straight, and the blocks regular. William Penn in 1680 did not surpass Hernando Cortez in 1522. Unlike his ever-stretching, never-girdled town, this city has its natural metres and bounds that put the whole under the eye at once. It is like the observation of a witty judge to a brother lawyer on Hempstead Plains. When urged to stop longer, and see the country more thoroughly, after a brief ride, he stood up in the buggy, turned himself slowly round, and said, "I have seen it. Drive on." So at this corner where the Church of the Profesa stands, you have only to look in four directions, and can say, "I've seen Mexico. Drive on." But if the general appearance is the same, the special and nearer views are varied, novel, and attractive.

Take the spot at the base of our church-tower of the Profesa. It is simply a corner in a city street. The names of the streets are devotional enough to make us pause; for here come together the Street of the Holy Spirit and the Street of St. Joseph, the Royal. You can see north to the Guadalupe range, west to Tacubaya, south to Ajusca (called Ahusca), a tall, dark, purple range, and east to the giant peaks of snow. The mountains are indeed round about Mexico as about no other capital, while the town lies as level at their bases as Chicago by its lake.

The Aztec priest, himself probably a prince and warrior, announced by divination that where they should see an eagle on a cactus, holding a serpent in his beak, there their city should be planted—located rather, for it would be difficult to plant a city on the sea. Such a sight was asserted to be seen at the southern end of Lake Tezcuco. The city was placed there for military