et-lined
cape, and the foreigner his overcoat, whilst the poor _peon_ shrouds
himself in his _serape_.

The city is one of handsome buildings, wide streets, and fine avenues.
Its architecture bears the stamp of its Spanish origin--the typical and
picturesque facades of the houses, the grille-covered windows, the
balconies looking on to the streets, and other characteristic features
well known to the traveller in Spanish-America. The great plaza, ever
the pulse and centre of these communities, is known here as the Zocalo;
and this ample square is that same one around which the Aztec city--the
famous Tenochtitlan--was built, upon whose foundations the Mexican
capital arose.

The plan of the city is more or less the geometrically regular one of
main and cross-streets running at right angles to each other, and the
principal of these are lined with shops, whose windows display
luxurious articles of jewellery, clothing, and other effects such as
betoken the taste and purchasing power of a wealthy upper class. It is
a city of domes and towers, which rise above the surrounding roofs, and
convey that aspect of charm and refinement unknown to the purely
business cities of Anglo North America. The strong part which the
Church has played is shown by the numerous and handsome churches in
every quarter of the city. There are more than one hundred and twenty
churches and other edifices which were built and formerly occupied for
ecclesiastical purposes. The cathedral is the dominating structure, and
its two great towers, nearly 200 feet high, are conspicuous from any
point of view.

Let us behold this pleasing city from afar before examining more in
detail the institutions and habitations of its people. The environs of
the capital form a good setting to its beauty. Taking our stand on the
range of hills which bound the Valley of Mexico, our eyes rest upon the
cultivated fields and gardens of the smaller towns which dot the plain
and lead up to the central mass. Green meadows, running streams, great
plantation of _maguey_, giving their characteristic semi-tropical
aspect to the landscape, surround _haciendas_ and villages embowered in
luxuriant foliage, all lying beneath the azure vault of the Mexican
sky. The gleam of domes and towers, softened in the glamour of the
distance, catches our eyes; and the reposeful atmosphere and mediaeval
tints seem to belie the strife of its past, or even the incidents of
its modern industrial life.