Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/243

 from, the plaza mayor,—some broad and some narrow, but all paved and straight, and lined with high buildings of stone. The structures themselves are built mainly of tetzontli a porous amygdaloid of dark color obtained from ancient quarries near the city, which, as it unites firmly with mortar, is more in request than any other for the buildings of the capital.

The cathedral occupying the northern side of the square, we have on our left, forming the entire eastern boundary of the plaza, the great national palace, over twenty-eight hundred feet long, and containing an infinite number of rooms. In a portion of this building—which is said to occupy the site of the ancient palace of Montezuma, or rather of Axayacatl, his royal sire, one room of which held three thousand persons—is situated the meteorological observatory, conducted by eminent scientific men. It is likely to be of great use to the scientific world; for, remember, we are here elevated some seven thousand feet nearer the heavens than in Greenwich or Washington; the air is consequently clearer, the stars brighter, and the moon and planets larger, than there. Add to this the fact—which must have been already observed—that there are no chimneys here, no smoke, and little dust, and we can imagine the perfect transparency of the pure ether through which these meteorologists and their brothers, the astronomers of the School of Mines and Chapultepec, gaze upon the other worlds outside of ours. Several companies of soldiers are constantly quartered here, who are paraded in front of the palace every morning as the clock strikes eight. Though sentinels stand guard at every portal, free access may be had to all portions of the great building upon application, and the admirer of relics of defunct imperialism may, for a real, look upon the state coach of Maximilian, yet preserved as a useless curiosity. The palace is the official residence of the President of the nation, and contains the offices of himself and his ministers and military commanders, and also the treasure of the nation and its archives.

In the botanical garden attached to the palace is a curious plant, called el arbol de las manitos, the tree of the little hands. It is the Cheirostemon platanifolium of the botanists, and the