the right of the chair is the portrait of the Emperor Augustin Yturbide.

The members at the time we were in the chamber, were engaged in a debate respecting the means of improving the revenue, and I could not avoid comparing the calmness that there reigned, with the turbulent scenes I had so lately witnessed in Jamaica.

We next visited the academy of San Carlos. There was here a fine original painting of the annunciation, in which the face of the virgin was extremely beautiful, and that of the angel very plain and unintellectual.

A smaller painting representing Spanish peasants on horseback was very remarkable. Another represented a girl of great beauty, which was much enhanced by the reflection of a red umbrella held over her head by a man, and the presence of a plain old lady who was walking with a stick.

The alameda of Mexico is not very remarkable. It has rather a formal appearance, on account of the numerous columns, rails and basins with which it is filled. It has many fine trees, but they are all now in a state of decay.

We visited the university in which there are one hundred and fifty scholars. The building is fine, and contains rooms for lectures on the various branches of natural science. That which is appropriated to mineralogy and geology is the most splendid. There was also one in which astronomy was taught, and another for the study of drawing and other arts.

There is also an observatory at the top of the building, to which we ascended. The view from this

is one of the finest that may be seen in the world. The fair city is fully seen, with its many churches, convents and broad ways from which no sound reaches the ear; while, beyond its bounds appear two mighty aqueducts which convey the water from the neighbouring hills, long avenues of fresh green trees distinguishing the lines of the roads to the city, and several villages buried in the rich foliage which surrounds them. At the same time we see the whole panorama of the vast plain, with the mountain peaks by which it is encompassed at a distance of between twenty and thirty leagues, and the two remarkable volcanoes known by the somewhat tortuous names of Popocatepetl and Iztaccibuabt; the whole combining together one of the grandest displays of natural scenery mingled with the works of man, that may anywhere be seen at one view.

The museum which we next visited contains a valuable collection of the relics of antiquity which serve to illustrate the manners, and the character of the religion, of the ancient inhabitants, also many curiosities that recall the events which accompanied the Spanish conquest, or exhibit the manners of the earlier Spanish settlers.

In the middle of the court as the stranger enters there is a colossal statue of Charles III. in bronze, by a native artist; and on the left hand within a rail are placed many relics of the Indian race.

The most remarkable of these is an enormous sacrificial stone. It is round and about three feet and a half in depth, and eight feet in diameter. The top and sides

of the stone are covered with hieroglyphics, and some of the figures of human beings are represented in the act of marching very much in the same manner as is seen upon many of the Egyptian monuments. In the middle of the flat upper side is a hole which appears to have been intended to catch the blood of the victims when sacrificed, while a groove from this to the side of the stone carried it off.

By the side of the sacrificial stone stands a figure which was found with it, and which presents one of the most monstrous forms ever designed to represent a living being. It is composed of a solid mass of stone, is about seven feet high, three and a half broad and covered with representations of the limbs of men, with figures to which it is by no means easy to give a name. It has a projecting tongue or lip, upon which the heart of the victim, which was cut out by the chief priest at the sacrifice, is said to have been placed.

If the traveller in Mexico should have come from Peru, where he may have followed the blood-stained tracks of the ferocious conquerors of the comparatively refined inhabitants of that romantic land, he will view the remains of the barbarous races that were conquered by the same nation in Mexico with very opposite feelings from those which he will have experienced upon the southern continent. Upon the whole he may even regard the conquerors of Mexico as the saviours of millions of our fellow-creatures from the most barbarous tyranny ever practised since the earliest period of human history. The authors of works on the history of the Astecs estimate the number of human sacrifices

made annually throughout the empire, at from twenty thousand to fifty thousand.*

There are also in this department of the museum several representations of the human form, among which, one only is tolerable. This is seated much as we see the Indian Juggernaut; but instead of that worthy deity's light figure and benevolent countenance, the Mexican deity has a clumsy form and most savage countenance; which however agree well enough with the ferocious character he was doubtless intended to represent.

Besides these. there were a number of monsters of different kinds, doubtless representing deities, of whose virtues and vices it is hardly to be regretted we have no particular knowledge.

Upon coming to the first of two upper rooms in the museum, I found our worthy chargé d'affairs, Mr. Doyle, who was showing the curiosities exposed here, to three of my compatriots, Lord Mark Kerr, lately arrived from Canada, where he had been aide-decamp to the governor-general, Lady Emilina Stewart Wortley, who has published her travels, and her daughter, a young lady of about thirteen years of age. Mr. Doyle politely introduced me to the party, and we continued our observations together.

The collection here consists chiefly of articles of pottery, which generally slightly resemble those found both in Pompeii and in Egypt. Amongst them were several heads placed in a similar attitude to those found in the eastern world, and much resembling some cut on

* See Prescott's chapter on the mythology, &c., of the Mexicans.

the walls of the Egyptian temples, though not in the expression of the features, which are the most savage that can be conceived. There were, however, some heads with features resembling those of the native Indians of the present day.

There is in one of these rooms, a broken and somewhat decayed trunk of a mastodon or mammoth like that at Santiago; but too little of it remains to enable any one to judge of its original dimensions.

There are also many stone instruments of which the use is quite unknown. It is probable, however, that these had a close connection with that extraordinary advancement attained by the Astecs, which seems to have been quite dissimilar from that of any other people in the new world. The most remarkable of these objects are several rude instruments which might be called mathematical, as they were doubtless used by the Astec philosophers, who, it is evident from the accounts of historians had made much greater advances in the science of astronomy than in any of the arts which they cultivated.

Perhaps the most curious article in the museum is, a map of the ancient city drawn by the Indians before the arrival of the Spaniards. It is placed in a glass frame and is not very distinct. It shows however some streets which appear to have been as straight as those of the present day, though nothing of them now remains.

Among the more remarkable of the articles exhibited are Indian weapons of war. They prove, at least, that the earlier inhabitants of this country were as accom