or in 1824, a republic. From this time until the defeat of Maximilian and his party in 1867, the history of Mexico is little other than a chronicle of successive revolutions, internecine strife, and foreign wars. In the National Palace, in the city of Mexico, is a very long, narrow room, termed the "Hall of Embassadors," from the circumstance that the President of the Republic here formally receives the representatives of foreign nationalities. Upon the walls of this room, and constituting, apart from several elaborate glass chandeliers, almost its only decoration, is a series of fairly painted, full-length portraits of individual Mexicans who, since the achievement of independence of Spain, had been so conspicuously connected with the state, or had rendered it such service, as to entitle them, in the opinion of posterity, to commemoration in this sort of national "Valhalla." To the visitor, entering upon an inspection of these interesting pictures, the accompanying guide, politely desirous of imparting all desirable information concerning them, talks somewhat after this manner:
"This is a portrait of the Emperor Iturbide, commander-in-chief of the army that defeated and expelled the last Spanish viceroy; elected emperor in 1822; resigned the crown in 1823; was proscribed, arrested, and shot in 1824. The next is a portrait of one of the most distinguished of the
