III.
FROM THE SIDEWALK.
Views from Street Corners.—Chief Street.—Shops, Plaza, Cathedral.—High and Low Religion.—Aztec Calendar Stone.—The Sacrificial Stone.—The President's private House.—Hotel Iturbide.—Private Residences.—Alameda.
The dizzy church top from which we swung round the circle of the town is not half as agreeable as this sturdy and simple pavement at its foot. After all, there is nothing like the solid earth under your feet. Even this not too solid earth is better than all airy spirits and domes and azateas. Not too solid, because you remember Mexico is located on a dry, salt marsh, which was a salt lake when Cortez conquered it, and which is yet a lake a few inches below the surface, and often, in its sewers and odors, upon the surface also.
These odors sometimes surpass those of Cologne, but, unlike those of that fragrant town, are not especially pestilential. The high altitudes preserve it from this peril. Nor is it altogether blamable for this defect. Drainage is hardly possible. The flat plain surrounded by high mountains prevents any sufficient descent for sewerage. When the street is opened for such purposes, you see the moist mud not two feet below the pavement. Efforts are being made, or rather being talked about, for opening channels to the Tulu River, some forty miles to the west, and thereby getting up a movement of this sort from the centre. But it is not likely soon to be.
Turning away our eyes, if we can not turn up our noses, from this offense, which is not very offensive on the chief thoroughfares, let us note the map and the traits of the town.
The first peculiarity you will observe is the romantic outlook almost every street corner affords. You look straight through the
