Page:The Rambler in Mexico.djvu/107

Rh gardens present a sad but beautiful scene, with their tangled labyrinths of myrtle, jessamine, and sweet pease, and their stained and voiceless fountains; and the view from them is such as none can picture to themselves who have not gazed upon it.

I had a partiality for my early rides in the direction which I have just been describing, both from the extreme beauty of the views, and because they were the most accessible from the centre of the city where we had our quarters. But as I desire to give you some idea of the country on every side, I may mention that on several occasions I did not fail to return upon my steps through the tedious length of suburb to the north, and regaining the calzada in that direction, proceed to visit the shrine and rock of the patron saint of Mexico, Nuestra Señora de Guadaloupe.

There are three churches here; that on the rock; the splendid and spacious Collegiate Church, at the foot of the mountain, one of the most costly in New Spain, teeming with massive silver ornaments—and the Capella del Pozo, a richly decorated chapel covered by a dome, built over a mineral spring.

The more ancient church is erected upon the barren rock of Tepeyayac, which forms the most southerly spur of a range of high mountains, which rise, as it were, in the very midst of the valley of Mexico, and may be called insulated, since they are only united to the sierra on the west, by an inconsiderable ridge lying between Guautitlan and Tanepantla.

I here picked up acquaintance with a dapper little priest, one of the canons of the great church, celebrated among the Europeans for keeping the best pulque in the whole country, a bottle of which he never failed to produce on receiving the compliment of a visit. Under shadow of his favour, I had several opportunities of seeing the shrine and its riches at my leisure. Neustra Señora of Guadaloupe, whose worship on this rock has succeeded to that of the goddess Tonantzin—the Mexican Ceres—is the patron saint of the city of Mexico. The