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e de Huehuetoca," is instructive enough, but it has been written so threadbare that I cannot touch it. Suffice it to say, that by this means a constant outlet was made for the lake of Zumpango, the highest of the five, and for the Rio de Guatitlan, a stream which formerly ran into it. So much for one cause of the change in the present appearance of the city. Then the Spaniards were great cutters down of forests. They rather liked to make their new country bear a resemblance to the arid plains of Castile, where, when you arrive in Madrid, people ask you whether you noticed _the tree_ on the road; and moreover, as they wanted wood, they cut it, without troubling themselves to plant for the benefit of future generations. Now, when the trees were cut down, the small plants which grew in their shade died too, and left the bare earth to serve as a kind of natural evaporating apparatus. And, between these two causes, it has come to pass that the extent of the lakes has been so much reduced, and that Mexico stands on the dry land--if, indeed, that may be called dry land, where you cannot dig a foot without coming to water. During the Tertiary period the whole valley of Mexico was one great lake. Whether the proportion of water to land had adjusted itself before the country was inhabited, or whether during historical times the lakes were still gradually diminishing by the excess of evaporation over the quantity of water supplied by rain and snow, is an open question. At any rate the two causes I have mentioned will account for the changes which have taken place since the conquest. Taking it as a whole, Mexico is a grand city, and, as Cortes truly said, its situation is marvellous. But as for the buildings, I should be sorry to inflict upon any one who may read these sketches, a detailed description of any one of them. It is a thousand pities that, just at the time when the Italians and Spaniards were most zealous in church-building, so very questionable an architectural taste should have been prevalent. The churches and convents in Mexico belong to that kind of renaissance style that began to flourish in southern Europe in the sixteenth century, and has held its ground there ever since. High facades abound, with pilasters crowned by elaborate Corinthian capitals, forming a curious contrast with the mean little buildings crouched behind the tall front. In the doors of the churches outside, and the chapels within, one is
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