Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/133

 Rh figures, and is deep stained as if with blood. Where the cathedral stands, a teocallis stood—five terraces, and two hundred feet high. By a fivefold series of stairs in one corner, and fivefold circuit of the mound, the teocallis was mounted. On its top was this stone. Around the sides of the teocallis and up its steps they led their victims—men and youth by the thousands—made them pause before this stone, stretched their chests over it, so that the heart was strained over its edge, cut the flesh over the heart opening to it, plucked the heart forth, laid it reverently before the god, and hurled the body down the sides of the teocallis to the multitude below, who took it up carefully, cooked it, and ate it as a religious banquet. The cathedral is better than the teocallis, and the genuflexions and millinery of priests and bishops than the sacrifice of bloody hearts and the sacrament of cannibalism.

Turn northward again. We pass up the street of San Francisco, by the modest house of President Lerdo, a two-story city front, with green blinds, without pretense or cost; past the Hotel Iturbide, once that emperor's palace, now the Hotel Diligencias, the costliest edifice on the street; past the chapel of San Francisco and the pile of buildings which made that famous convent. Nearly opposite the chapel and its gardens are the residences of the two wealthiest Mexicans, Barron and Escandron. The brother of the latter once gave his check for seven millions of dollars. He began his fortune by establishing a stage-coach system all over this country. Mines, railroads, and other operations keep it growing. Their residences are plain without, except the latter's new house, which essays pillars and bronze dogs and lions on its roof. Within they are sumptuous. Courts, flowers, long suites of long parlors, every thing the heart craves is there, except that which it craves preeminently—the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Between their houses is an old structure, faced with porcelain, blue-and-white blocks, four inches square, of various figures. Within is a court with carved pillars. It is a very fanciful structure, and originally cost much. Across the way from these dignities, in pleasant apartments, is the residence of the American consul general, Dr. Julius