"After this the way seemed clear. Far on the horizon loomed the white, snow-capped cones of Popocateptl and Ixtaccihuatl, beautiful and pure above the deserts, the canyons, and the forests beneath them--the gateway to Mexico. From the foremost, above its snow-cap, there belched forth a great column of smoke, for at that period Popocateptl was an active volcano. Onwards the Spaniards pressed with buoyant hearts and eager feet, and when they stood upon the summit of the range their eyes beheld the beautiful valley of Mexico, the haven for which they had long toiled and fought, stretched below. There, shimmering in distance, lay the strange, unknown city of the Aztecs, like a gem upon the borders of its lakes: its towers and buildings gleaming white in the brilliant sun of the tropic upland beneath the azure firmament and brought to deceptive nearness by the clear atmosphere of that high environment. There at last was their longed-for goal, the mysterious Tenochtitlan."[8] [8] _Mexico_, by the Author, South American Series. * * * * * The city of Mexico, notwithstanding its modern attributes, is stamped with history and tradition, and in this respect is perhaps the most noteworthy metropolis on the American continents. It is, as it were, a mediaeval city, transplanted from the Old World to the New. The United States has, naturally, no place which may compare with it, and in happier times Mexico City has been a tourist centre for Americans, who, escaping from the more materialistic and commercial atmosphere of their own busy towns, and the extremes of heat or cold which alternate therein, have sought the equable and healthful condition of the Mexican upland capital--an easy journey comparatively, of a few days in a Pullman car, amid landscapes attractive from their novelty. We are in a city of churches and convents. Elsewhere I have described some of these remarkable edifices, home of the Roman Catholic faith, and as we view the city from the pleasing hills surrounding the valley their domes and towers stand up refreshingly.