Literary Industries (Volume 39) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1890. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... built from the ancient structure represented above, occupying two blocks with immense courts, and making up in extent and solidity what it lacks in style of architecture, there are the cathedral, which, from an architectural point of view, is considered by some the finest in America, the libraries, the museum, the art galleries, the school of mines, and the many other industrial, religious, and benevolent institutions, the z6calo, or government plaza, with a fine stand for the musicians in the centre, surrounded by trees, shrubs, and flowers in profusion. On the east is the palace, on the north the grand cathedral, on the west are commercial houses, and on the south the offices of the municipal government. The z6calo is often illuminated at night, and there the best bands play and the elite of the city promenade. There are also the alameda, a beautiful foot-park, ten acres in extent, with shady walks and bowers, fountains sparkling at every turn, and towering trees shading all from the heat of the sun; the race-track, the bull-ring, and at a little distance, the Guadalupe and Loreto shrines, the floating gardens, and famed Chapultepec, the residence successively of Aztec monarchs, Spanish vicero}'s, and Mexican presidents, a castle on a hill rising out of the dense forest, approached by the Paseo de la Reforma, the drive of Mexico. Many strange scenes these venerable cypresses have witnessed; history unwritten and never to be known of aboriginal wars, of statecraft and priestcraft, of love-makings and merry-makings, for these trees were hoary, and of heavy, flowing beard when Quauhtemotzin was born, though still vigorous now, and of majestic mien. While the city of Mexico is well laid out, the streets for the most part being straight and regular, so that from on...