daily exhibited there behind this rusty iron grating, not two paces from the most fashionable promenade in Mexico: this is the window of the Mexican Morgue, where the dead bodies are exposed. Justice only displays her anxiety at the moment when the dead bodies of men and women are thrown together in one promiscuous heap on its floor, some half naked, others still bleeding. Every day there is a new succession of victims. As for the Paseo, which is close to this melancholy exhibition, its only attractions are a double row of trees, a few stone seats for the use of pedestrians, and three fountains overloaded with detestable allegorical statues. At this spot you catch a glimpse of a part of the country seen from the towers of the Cathedral; the two snow-covered peaks of the volcanoes with their canopy of clouds; the sierra shaded with its beautiful violet tints: lower down, the whitened fronts of several haciendas; and through the arches of a gigantic aqueduct you descry fields of maize, church domes and convents, almost always half hidden at the promenade hour in the mist which generally ascends at nightfall.
On the evening of the day on which I had witnessed the bull-fight, I found myself in a crowd of idlers who ordinarily cover the space between the Paseo and the Alameda. It was twilight; the lamps were about to be lighted, and pedestrians and carriages were severally wending their way homeward. It was Sunday. Noisily repeated by the numerous bells of the churches and convents, the toll of the Angelus rose high above the murmur of the crowd, of which one portion respectfully paused, while the other made its way like a torrent that nothing could resist. The last gleams of departing day glimmered through the grate of the Morgue, and
