Mexico

City of, the capital and chief city of the republic of Mexico. It is situated amid lakes on a marshy table-land, at an elevation of 7,434 feet above the sea. It is surrounded by mountains. It is 263 miles by rail from Vera Cruz and 1,224 from El Paso. The extreme range of temperature is from 35 deg. to 90 deg. The ordinary temperature ranges from 60 deg. to 80 deg. Frost is unknown. The hottest months are April and May. The air is always cool at night. The rainy season sets in May and lasts till September.

Save Buenos Ayres, Mexico is the largest and the most imposing city of Spanish-America. It is a walled city laid out in form of a square, three miles on a side. The streets and alleys cross at right angles. The streets are broad and are well paved with asphalt. The houses are built of stone plastered with stucco, and are two or three stories in height with flat roofs. They are of quaint architecture, and are gayly painted in white, red, yellow, or green. Each surrounds an inside open court called a patio. The houses of the wealthy are faced with colored porcelain tiles arranged in attractive patterns. The windows open on verandas. The patios are adorned with shrubbery and flowers, fountains and statuary. The soil is too marshy for cellars. For fear of earthquakes, the older buildings have no chimneys.

At the center of the city is the plaza or public square, covering fourteen acres, around which the public buildings are grouped. On the east, occupying the site of Montezuma's old residence is the National Palace, now housing the president's office and some of the departments. At present Congress meets here. The Hall of Ambassadors is hung with paintings of Mexican rulers. George Washington is given a place also. The Mexican bell of independence was rung by Father Hidalgo over his chapel at Dolores to sound the call to arms, September 15, 1810. It has been brought hither and hung over the main doorway. On the anniversary of independence, it is rung at midnight by no less a hand than that of the president of the republic.

On the north side of the plaza stands the cathedral, the greatest church edifice in the New World. In size it is excelled by only ten cathedrals of Europe. It was begun in 1573 and finished in 1657 at a cost of $2,000,000 for masonry alone. It is in the form of a Greek cross 426 feet long and 253 feet wide. The building is of gray stone. There are two great naves, three aisles, twenty side chapels, and a magnificent high altar on marble columns. The interior is Doric; the exterior, Renaissance. The main front is flanked by two bell towers. A tower crowns the center of the edifice. From it a magnificent view of the valley may be had. The air is so clear that the mountains, really thirty or forty miles away, seem but a ten minutes' walk distant. At the foot of one tower is the famous calendar stone, or more probably the sacrificial stone, of the ancient Aztecs.

Other buildings grouped about the plaza or in the immediate vicinity are the national pawn shop, the postoffice, the city hall, the jail, the merchants' exchange, and the national museum of antiquities.

Important buildings situated elsewhere are the mint, the picture gallery--the finest in America,--the Library of St. Augustine, containing 225,000 volumes and many manuscripts, the Iturbide hotel, the school of mines, and the old inquisition building. There are several parks near the city. The largest is the Alameda, covering forty acres. It surrounds the plot wherein the victims of the inquisition, refused burial on holy ground, were interred. Boulevards, fine views, statuary, a profusion of trees and flowers render Mexico the most attractive scenic city in North America. The city is at the lowest point in the valley. A number of surrounding lakes lie at a greater elevation and are kept back by dikes. Canals communicate with the adjoining districts and are the avenues by which the vegetables and dairy and poultry supplies reach the city. A sewer or canal thirty miles long leads to the mountains and passes through them by a rock-hewn tunnel seven miles long, rendering a future inundation of the city impossible.

The city is connected by rail with the Gulf, the Pacific, and west Texas. It is the commercial and financial center of the republic. The population in 1900 was 368,777. The mass of the people are Indian or of mixed blood. Business is in the hands of the Spanish and, of late, Americans. The Spaniards monopolize the offices and create the social atmosphere. The city government is modeled on that of the District of Columbia. There is a mounted policeman at every corner. The streets are clean and are well lighted by electricity. There are 1,900 drinking places dealing in wine, beer, and pulque. They are closed at 6 P. M. and at noon on Sunday, when everybody goes to the park concerts or to the bullfights.

The Spanish element takes pride in the history of the city. The first printing press in North America was set up here. A volume printed in Spanish in 1535 is preserved in the public library. A hundred volumes appeared in Mexico before a press was set up in the English-speaking colonies.