Page:Six Months In Mexico.pdf/53

Rh if to the Museum of Vienna, where it remained until Maximilian restored it to Mexico.

One room is devoted to the display of Mexican marbles, stones, ores, etc. Another has petrified snakes, wood, human and animal bones. Cow horns measuring seven feet from tip to tip were excavated somewhere near Mexico. Elephant jaws and tusks which treble the size of those sported by the late lamented Jumbo are also from the historic, mysterious earth of Mexico. Among the many other things were noticed human bones protruding through a rock, and a turtle's shell which, if opened, would make a carpet for a grand salon.

Snakes, lizards, fish and crabs of all kinds fill one good sized room, divided in the center by stuffed alligators, sword fish, crocodiles and boa constrictors. This opens into another department, and here you meet the Mexican dudes occasionally. There are few collections of birds to this. Added to their own numerous beautiful and rare birds are specimens from all parts of the world. The work is especially fine, and the birds and fowls appear as if in life. One thing to be regretted is they have no butterflies. In all the museum they have but one small case, and they are the beauties which come from Brazil. The collection of beetles is somewhat larger, but still is nothing remarkable.

Monstrosities are quite plenty. One little calf has one head, one large eye in the center of its forehead, and two perfect bodies. Another has one perfect body and two heads. Two pheasants are fastened together like the Siamese twins. Dogs, cats, chickens, and even babies come in for their share of doubling up into all kinds of queer shapes. Monkeys, baboons, gorillas and a dilapidated elephant and giraffe finish this interesting quarter.

The court of the museum is planted with beautiful flowers and trees. Large idols were once standing there, but they have been moved inside of the building opposite the entrance. The idols can lay no claim to beauty, and are anything but interesting, except to people who have a wonderful amount of faith and a capacity to believe a fellow-creature's wild imagination. Scientific gentlemen with long faces and one eye-glass gaze at the images and translate, or at least pretend to, the hieroglyphics which cover them. We would not think for a moment of putting