CHAPTER XXIII.

A Miscellany Chapter-Three Lions of Mexico-Calendar Stone-Burial Ground of Santa Maria-The Paseo-Santa Anna's Coach driven by an American-Reflections-Mexican Carriages-Costly Equipage-Mexican Women on Horseback-The Theatre-The Bull Fight-Mean Temperature-Character of the Mexicans, by Clavigero.

THERE are so many things in Mexico of a character so unique, and to an American so new and striking, that there is great danger of falling into a wearisome tediousness and drivelling on the one hand, or omitting many objects of interest on the other. And as most readers will more readily pardon the latter fault, I will hasten to a conclusion, that I may turn to other more pleasant and profitable occupations. The reader will find this chapter a sort of melange of such disjointed recollections as my memory may serve me with-and of course without any harmony or coincidence as a frugal housewife makes a carpet or a bed-quilt of all the scraps which she may happen to have on hand.

As to the physical circumstances of the country, or more exact information as to the mines or other matters of that character, the reader is referred to the work of Baron Humboldt. As to the early history of Mexico nothing can be added to the comprehensive and elaborate work of the Abbé Clavigero; and a very full account of the antiquities of the country will be found in Mr. Brantz Mayer's book.

I have mentioned two of the three things in Mexico

which are first shown to every foreigner, the Colossal Equestrian Statue in bronze of Charles IV. of Spain, and the great Sacrificial Stone. I must not slight the third and much the most important of the three-Montezuma's Dial as it is called, which has been worked into the corner of the cathedral.

It is a large mass of porphyritic stone of ten feet diameter, and circular shape. In the centre is a human head with the tongue hanging out, cut in relief; around this head are five circles of hieroglyphic figures, intended for the computation of the different divisions of time in the Calendar of the ancient Mexicans. Their civil year was divided into eighteen months of twenty days each. The five intercalary days were added to the last month, and the fractions of hours were computed at the end of a cycle of fifty-two years. Thirteen years constituted a tlalpilli,-four of these a cycle of fifty-two years, which were represented by bundles of reeds bound together with a string, two of these cycles of fifty-two years constituted another division of a hundred and four years, which was called an old age. I do not remember the Mexican term. I copy the following extract of a very interesting letter upon the subject from the Abbé Hervas to Clavigero :

"The Mexican year began on the 26th of February—a day celebrated in the era of Nabonassar, which was fixed by the Egyptians 747 years before the Christian era-for the beginning of their month Toth, corresponding with the meridian of the same day. If these priests fixed upon this day as an epoch because it was celebrated in Egypt, we have there the Mexican calendar agreeing with the Egyptian. But independent of this, it is certain that the Mexican calendar corresponded greatly with the Egyptian. On the 26th day of February of the above mentioned year, according to the meridian of Alexandria, which was built three centuries after, the year properly began.

"The year and century have, from time immemorial, been regulated by the Mexicans with a degree of intelligence which does not at all correspond with their arts and sciences. In them they were certainly very inferior to the Greeks and Romans, but the discernment which appears in their calendar equals them to the most enlightened nations. Hence we may imagine that this calendar has not been the discovery of the Mexicans, but that they have received it from some more enlightened people, and as the last are not to be found in America, we must seek for them elsewhere, in Asia or in Egypt. This circumstance is confirmed by your affirmation that the Mexicans had their calendar from the Taltecas (originating from Asia), whose year according to Boturini was exactly adjusted by the course of the sun-more than a hundred years before the Christian era ;—and also from observing that other nations, namely, the Chiapanese, made use of the same calendar with the Mexicans, without any difference but that of their symbols."

How greatly it is to be desired that some clue may yet be found to the Mexican hieroglyphics-how much light would thereby be shed not only upon the question whence came the settlers of this continent, but also upon the history of our race! The reckless fanaticism of the conquerors left no monument of Mexican superstition or history, which it was possible for them to destroy,—there is not a vestige in the city of Mexico of the architecture of its ancient inhabitants. The reader is aware that so obstinate was the resistance of the Mexicans in the last and successful siege, that Cortes was forced to tear down every house, and that, literally, he won not the great city of the Aztecs, but one vast heap of ruins.

The burial-ground of Santa Maria in Mexico is the most beautiful of the kind I have ever seen-and it is really not a misapplication of the term beautiful, to apply it to a graveyard such as this. It is a space of ground of some eight or ten acres, enclosed with a stone wall about fifteen feet high and ten thick. This wall serves the double pur

pose of enclosing the ground and as a place to deposit the dead. Little niches are made in it large enough to receive a coffin, like the pigeon-holes in a desk.

The whole area is laid off in gravel walks and bordered with flowers and shrubbery, and beautiful marble tombs all over it. Lamps are always kept burning at night, and altogether I have never seen any other last restingplace which had so little of gloom about it.

The lower classes are buried in other places and without coffins; they are carried to the grave on rude litters, but the children and women generally on beds made of roses and other flowers.

The wife of General Canalizo died whilst he was President ad interim, during the absence of Santa Anna. She was embalmed and had a pair of glass eyes inserted, and lay in state for several days, gorgeously dressed and glittering in jewels; every one was admitted to the great chamber of the palace where the body was exposed. It was a most revolting spectacle, and all the more so to those who knew the modest, gentle and unostentatious character of that very uncommon woman. She seemed to be unconscious of the great dignity of the station to which her husband had been elevated, and spent her whole life in acts of charity and benevolence, and was singularly averse to all sorts of ostentation and parade.

None but Catholics are allowed to be buried in the regular burial-grounds, and if buried anywhere else, there is no security that the sacredness of the grave of one regarded as an infidel will not be molested. To the disgrace of Mexico, the rites of sepulture have to be secured to foreigners, not Catholics, by treaty. Two of the Texians died at Puebla Nacional; one of them, to protect his corpse from violation, professed the Catholic faith; the other, a very gal

lant and fine young man, Lieut. Sevey, refused to do so. It was with great difficulty that his friends could obtain the privilege of burial for him, which was at last accomplished by a bribe of a hundred and fifty dollars to the priest.

Let us now turn from burials and burying-grounds to a very different place-the Paseo, with its glittering throng. Until very recently European or American coaches were not used. There are a good many there now owned by wealthy persons. The duty upon their importation is very high, and they sell for twice as much as in the United States, and hence are not generally used. The President has a very splendid barouche drawn by four American horses, and I am ashamed to say driven by an American. I can never become reconciled to seeing a native American performing the offices of a menial servant-but I felt this the more on seeing a foreigner and in a foreign land thus waited on by one of my countrymen. I was more than ever thankful that I lived in that portion of our country where no man is theoretically called a freeman who is not so in fact, in feelings and in sentiments; no decent Southern American could be induced to drive anybody's coach or clean his shoes. I have no doubt that if the liberties of this country are ever destroyed that they will perish at the ballot-box; men whose menial occupations degrade them in their own self-esteem, and deprive them of the proud consciousness of equality, have no right to vote.

The President of Mexico never leaves his palace but with a large escort of cavalry, the King of Prussia walks the streets of Berlin unattended; the one is a despotism, the other a republic. But there are few such despotisms as the Prussian, and few such republics as the Mexican.

The Mexican carriages are altogether unique and grotesque. The distance between the two axletrees is gene