These appendages, though they add greatly to the comfort of the occupants, nevertheless disfigure the buildings by impairing their symmetrical proportions. The piazza, especially, awakens a sensation of peril, as one passes for the first time on horseback through the streets, particularly if he has been accustomed to the broad thoroughfares and elevated structures of a northern Anglo-American city. The contrast is great. GREAT ANTIQUITY OF THE CITY. In all its outlines and main features, this city is deeply traced with the furrows of age. It also wears a foreign aspect to the eye of an American. Ruinous buildings, of antique and foreign model, vacant lots, broken inclosures, and a rough, tasteless exterior, scarred by the ravages of fire and time, awaken a sense of discomfort and desolation in the mind of a stranger. APPEARANCE. From the sea, as you enter the inlet from the harbor, the city presents a fine view. Any distant prospect is decidedly pleasing. Its deformities--the narrow streets--dilapidated buildings, with their projecting piazzas--are lost to the eye in the distance; in which, also, unity of effect is produced by the regularity of the plan on which the city is built; which effect is heightened greatly by the ornamental trees, whose foliage screens many of the houses--the overshadowing pride of India--and the vigorous “morus multicaulus.” There is, however, much to relieve the first unfavorable impressions of a stranger. Its comfortless appearance is the effect of first impressions, which of course are superficial, and often delusive. The blighted stocks of desolate orange groves--the tokens of decay--the obvious lack of industry and taste, and the consequent want of thrift--on a close inspection, are relieved by a constant succession of images of the past, illustrative of the character of Castilian mind in a heroic and barbarous age. Moreover, there is a rapid transition in progress. This ancient city is being transformed into American features, both in its external appearance, and in the habits and customs of the people. Many of its recent edifices are in the neat, attractive style of American village architecture. Especially is this the case in the neighborhood of the Magnolia House. PUBLIC PLACES. The city has a public square, or inclosed common. In the centre, a monument some sixteen or eighteen feet high, has been erected. It commemorates the giving of a constitutional basis to the Spanish government. On its fronts, the following Spanish sentence is engraved:--“Plaza de la Constitution.”