II.
FROM THE CHURCH TOP.
First Attempt and Failure.—At it again.—The Southern Outlook.—Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl.—Cherubusco.—Chapultepec.—Guadalupe.—The patron Saint of the Country.—Round the Circle.
This is the highest of all the man-built places from whence I have ever tried to talk. I am sitting on the top of the finest church in this city, except the cathedral—that of the Profesa. It adjoins my hotel, and is easily accessible from the azatea, or flat roof, of that building. The sun is burning his way down the western sky, setting masses of clouds on fire with his effulgence.
Two little girls, children of my landlady, have led me hither, and they are woefully frightened at a man in the belfry fixing the bells. In broken English, the older of the two makes known her fears, "Will he make nothing of me?" she cries. I relieve her, and soon she says her little sister calls her a "false fool" for being so alarmed.
Though the place is excellent for composition, the children keep me so intent upon their perilous pranks that I have no leisure for sketching. And so I sit and see the sun roll down behind Ajusca, the highest of the western hills, and behold the reflex glory on the white brows of the two south-eastern volcanoes, with their terrible names, flushed with the opposing sun, as the brow of death glows with the light from the sun beyond the vail.
The sun gone, the glory is gone; no twilight lingers here, as winsome as a morning nap. Abrupt beginnings and abrupt endings are characteristics of clime and people, with very gay and gracious interludes. The air grows chill as the sky grows dark, and the children and I climb the chancel roof, peep into the dome, and down into the church; that is, I do; they are too timid or too well
