walls, a genuine Murillo and an original Michael Angelo. A dim light
pervades the interior of the cathedral, tempered by the flare of tall
candles, but it lacks the beautiful effect of stained glass windows. The
imagination, however, is very active, and easily summons from the dim
past ghostly shadows, while an overpowering sense of height and silence
prevails.

Here Maximilian and Carlotta were crowned, in 1864, emperor and empress,
with great ceremony, little dreaming how briefly their imperial honors
would remain to them.

In contemplating this grand architectural development, as well as the
hundreds of other similar structures, erected at such enormous
expenditures of money and labor, one cannot but be exercised by mingled
emotions. We are apt to recall how much of absolute misery was entailed
upon the down-trodden natives, who were compelled to work for barely
sufficient food to sustain life. The control of the priesthood was
absolute; they levied taxes upon everything and everybody. They were
amenable to no civil laws, and recognized none but those of the church.
The extent to which they carried their extortion is almost beyond
belief, and the amount of wealth which they accumulated is nearly
incredible. At the time of the reform, the clergy absolutely owned three
fourths of the entire property of the country.

The view from the towers of the cathedral,--in which there are between
forty and fifty costly bells, each dedicated to some saint or
martyr,--is so remarkable that not even the most casual visitor to the
capital should miss it. It presents such a picture as promptly
photographs itself on the brain, never to be obliterated. It was from
this locality, on the summit of the Aztec temple which stood here four
hundred years ago, that Montezuma pointed out to Cortez the beauties of
his capital and its fairy-like environs, so soon to be destroyed by the
hands of the ruthless invader. At our feet lies the tree-dotted plaza,
with its central pleasure-garden and its fine architectural
surroundings, including the long, white facade of the national palace,
while the entire city is spread out before us with its myriad domes,
spires, thoroughfares, and causeways. There are typical scenes and
groups everywhere formed by the eddies of busy life. Long lines of
heavy-laden burros thread the streets, the natives assume the size of
huge insects crawling about in bright colors, the blooming trees are
like button-hole bouque