The crest of the eastern cordillera sharpens and defines itself against a background of rose and gold; the majestic snow caps of Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl, which rise as two colossi in order to display the beauties of the sunrise, feebly illuminated on their western flanks by the diffused light, appear as if made of Bohemian crystal. At times a dense column of smoke, rendered visible by the whiteness of dawn, issues from the crater of Popocatepetl, demonstrating the constant activity of this volcano, which retains evidences of tremendous activity. When the sun, rising above the horizon, pursues its upward march, it presents a beautiful spectacle, difficult of description. Its disc, red and apparently increased in size, on account of atmospheric refraction, presents itself surrounded by a luminous aureole, and gradually diminishes in diameter as it mounts higher. The antecrepuscular curve submerged in the horizon, the west acquires the same succession of tints and the upper part of the sky is colored with a brilliant, most vivid blue. From that moment the surroundings of the Capital city are most charming. Chapultepec, with its many and limpid springs, its picturesque rock mass, its poetic palace and its dense grove of ancient cypresses, from the branches of which depend masses of gray moss--the honored locks of their hoary age; Tacubaya with its palaces, its parks, and gardens; Mixcoac with its pleasing environs and its lanes of fruit trees; San Angel, Coyoacan, and Tlalpam, with their clear brooks, their gardens, their fields, and their pretty glades, covered with plants, trees, and interlacing climbers. In all these places one enjoys the intoxicating freshness of the morning, the attractiveness of the fields, the breathing of the fresh air loaded with the perfume of flowers. There swarms of butterflies, with gleaming and brilliant wings, display their beauties and humming-birds, those precious winged gems which, endowed with an extraordinary flight, cleave the air like an exhalation, or, sucking honey from some flower, suspended in space, incessantly beat their wings and expose the green and pearly lustre of their plumage to the reflections of the sun. South of the capital, the soil differs from that of the places mentioned. There the camelia, the lily, the Bengal-rose, and the other exquisite flowers of careful cultivation are not met; but there, in the _chinampas_, those artificial islands which have converted swamps into lovely gardens, grow the luxuriant poppy, the purple pink, the elegant dahlia, the perfumed violet, and the fragrant rose of Castile.