rposes. How people able to do otherwise are willing to sleep,
eat, and live over a stable certainly seems, to us, very strange. At
night these patios are guarded by closing large metal--studded doors, a
concierge always sleeping near at hand either to admit any of the family
or to resist the entrance of any unauthorized persons, very much after
the practice which is common in France and the cities of Northern
Europe.

We used the expression "while strolling about the better part of the
city," etc.; but let us not convey a wrong impression thereby, for there
are no exclusively aristocratic streets or quarters in the city of
Mexico. The houses of both the upper and lower classes are mingled,
scattered here and there, often adjoining each other. Some few of the
better class of houses, like the domes of some of the churches, are
faced with porcelain tiles, giving the effect of mosaic; but this has a
tawdry appearance, and is exceptional in the national capital. At Puebla
it is much more common, that city being the headquarters of
tile-manufacturing.

No matter how many times one may visit the grand cathedral, each fresh
view impresses him with some new feature and also with its vastness. As
to the harmony of its architectural effect, that element does not enter
into the consideration, for there is really no harmony about it.
Everything is vague, so to speak, irregular, and a certain appearance of
incompleteness is apparent. There is at all times a considerable number
of women, and occasionally members of the other sex, to be seen bending
before the several chapels; deformed mendicants and professional beggars
mingle with the kneeling crowd. Rags flutter beside the most costly
laces; youth kneels with crabbed old age; rich and poor meet upon the
same level before the sacred altar. Priests by the half dozen, in
scarlet, blue, gilt, and yellow striped robes officiate hourly before
tall candles which flicker dimly in the daylight, while boys dressed in
long white gowns swing censers of burning incense. The gaudy trappings
have the usual theatrical effect, and no doubt serve, together with the
deep peals of the organ, the dim light of the interior, the monotone of
the priest's voice, in an unknown tongue, profoundly to impress the poor
and ignorant masses. The largest number of devotees, nearly all of whom,
as intimated, are women, were seen kneeling before the small chapel
where rest the remains of Iturbide, first emperor of M