Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/442

428 The party, on the conclusion of Mr. Seward's remarks, were escorted to the house of the Prefecto for a brief rest. At 2, the bands drew up in front of the house, and the party, escorted as before by the whole population, started for the fine old parochial church of Cholula, the second in age in Mexico. This church, though of enormous size and surrounded by an immense flagged court or plaza, is not to be compared to many others in the country for magnificence. In style it is purely Moorish and quite unique. There are fifty-six low Moorish arches, supported by sixty-four columns painted in brilliant lime colors, and the altar and other appurtenances are all curiously antique in style and character. There are, of course, many old pictures, but none of them struck me as particularly fine. The church was commenced in 1530, and stands to-day exactly as it was finished more than three and a quarter centuries ago.

The scene on the entry of the party to the church, was worthy the pencil of a painter, and curiously illustrative of time's revenges. Where Cortez and his companions had bowed the knee, and knelt with uncovered heads when the Host was raised above the multitude, came an old grey-headed statesman, from a land then unknown, who had slept in Maximilian's bed the previous night, walking by the side of a descendant of those who crucified the Savior on Mount Calvary, and escorted by the authorities of this ancient strong-hold of the Faith, while an American—Col. Green—with pale, sharp-cut, representative face, and, tall, slender figure, clad in the uniform of the Mexican Army, led on the band of swarthy Aztecs, who were playing with a will, the "March of Zaragoza," an air as obnoxious to