Across Mexico in 1864 - 5 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1866 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VI. CITY LIFE.IN MEXICO. The Hotel Iturbide--a lofty, three-storied building, with a decorated facade, originally intended to serve as the palace of the Emperor Don Augustin Iturbide--receives most travellers on their arrival in the capital. It is situated in the best part of the city, in the Calle San Francisco, a little below its junction with its continuation the Calle de Plateros (Street of the Silversmiths), which leads westward out of the Plaza Mayor. At the bottom of the Calle San Francisco is the Alameda--a seedy kind of public promenade, where the band plays three mornings a week. The hotel itself is about as comfortable as a second-rate hotel in Italy, and constructed on the same airy principles. One half of the ground-floor of the building is occupied by the fonda or restaurant, which is kept by a Frenchman, and is quite distinct from the hotel, and the other half by a huge upholsterer's shop and dingy show rooms. A wide stone staircase, reached by crossing a stone yard, which is laid under water during the floods, conducts you to H the upper regions, and access is gained to the bedrooms by means of exterior galleries carried round the courtyard on each flat. The doors of the rooms which open on to these galleries serve at the same time for windows, the upper panels being fitted with glass. We, however, owing to the kindness of Don Antonio Escandon, to whom we looked--and never in vain--as to a kind of Mexican Providence, were saved from the necessity of lodging in the hotel. This gentleman was good enough to place at our disposal a couple of rooms in a spare house of his own, into which he intended to remove with his family as soon as it should have been properly furnished. The furniture, which had been purchased in London and Paris, for...