It was now the Holy Week. For several days previous to Palm Sunday, many preparations had been made for the coming solemnities.
The surface of the canals of Chalco and Izstacalco, which enter the city from the Paseo de las Vigas, was daily crowded with canoes, laden with the most beautiful flowers, the produce of the chinampas, or floating gardens of the Indians, on the border of the lakes. The great market was filled with palm branches, and all the altars and shrines of the city were perfumed with the sweet fragrance of the bouquets with which they were tastefully adorned.
The fruit stalls under the arcades, and in the different plazas, and the innumerable pulquerias, were decorated in the same manner. The love of flowers is as marked among the Indians at this day, as at the time of the conquest.
On the earlier days of the week, the interest of the scene thickened hour by hour. A large proportion of the population of the valley repaired to the city; and the streets were crowded with all classes, from the poor half naked Indian of the pure Ottomie or the Mexican race, whose sole covering was a dingy wollen or goatskin blanket, and straw hat, jacket, and calico pantaloons reaching to the knee, to the wealthy paysano, or country gentleman, whose costly apparel might be valued at upward of five hundred dollars. About the evening of Wednesday, the scene on the Plaza Mayor, in front of the cathedral, baffles all description. It forms at present one of the finest squares in the world; and were it not for the intrusion of the Parian, the large ungainly pile of building in one angle, it would be perhaps without rival.
The cathedral, a noble and stately structure with two ornamented towers, rises to the east; the splendid palace of the viceroy on the north; the house of Cortez, and a number of equally palatial buildings to the south; and a range of fine edifices, with a basement of lofty arcades, to the west. The removal of the circular balustrade,
