y of the museum are of intense interest. In an
historical point of view they are invaluable. A great amount of money
and intelligent labor has been expended upon the collection with highly
satisfactory results. It is of engaging interest to the merest museum
frequenter, but to the archaeologist it is valuable beyond expression.
Here are also deposited the extensive solid silver table-service
imported for his own use by Maximilian, and also the ridiculously gilded
and bedizened state carriage brought hither from Europe, built after
the English style of the seventeenth century. The body of the vehicle is
painted red, the wheels are gilded, and the interior is lined with white
silk brocade, heavily trimmed with silver and gold thread. It surpasses
in elegance and cost any royal vehicle to be seen in Europe, not
excepting the magnificent carriages in the royal stables of Vienna and
St. Petersburg. Among the personal relics seen in the museum is the coat
of mail worn by Cortez during his battles from Vera Cruz to the capital,
also the silk banner which was borne in all his fights. This small flag
bears a remarkably lovely face of the Madonna, which must have been the
work of a master hand. The shield of Montezuma is also exhibited, with
many arms, jewels, and picture writings, these last relating to historic
matters, both Toltec and Aztec. The great sacrificial stone of the
aborigines, placed on the ground floor of the museum, is, in all its
detail, a study to occupy one for days. It is of basalt, elaborately
chiseled, measuring nine feet in diameter and three feet in height. On
this stone the lives of thousands of human beings, we are told, were
offered up annually. The municipal palace is on the south side of the
plaza, nearly opposite to which is a block of buildings resting upon
arcades like those of the Rue Rivoli in Paris. Let us not forget to
mention that in the garden of the national palace the visitor is shown a
remarkable floral curiosity called the hand-tree, covered with bright
scarlet flowers, almost exactly in the shape of the human hand. This is
the _Cheirostemon platanifolium_ of the botanists, an extremely rare
plant, three specimens of which only are known to exist in Mexico.

In the rear of the national palace is the Academy of Fine Arts,
generally spoken of as the Academy of San Carlos,--named in honor of
Carlos III. of Spain,--which contains three or four well-filled
apartments of paintings, with one and,