Here is the world-famous Aztec Calendar Stone found in the plaza in 1790
during some levelling operations, and the wonderfully carved Stone of
Sacrifice, also unearthed in the plaza a year later. Here, too, is the
much debated Chac Mool statue which Dr. Le Plongeon, of whom and whose
work we shall have occasion to speak later, found at Chichen Itza,
Yucatan. In the galleries above there is a hotchpotch of exhibits
ranging from a dreadfully poor picture of the Emperor Maximilian's
footman, the hair of General D. Vicente Guerrero (it is to be feared
that the world has long ago forgotten that he ever lost it), a "Marble
Bath Tub made of a single block, said to have belonged to the
Archduchess Carlotta," and "No. 63. Wooden Tub made of one piece,
presented to the Archduchess by Col. Juan B. Campos," to a plaster cast
of "the ideal man of Neanderthal," specimens of human skins tattooed,
Japanese armour and two human bodies naturally mummified. In truth, it
is a sorry spectacle, this National Museum of Mexico, and you wander out
of its bewildering galleries full of regret at the reckless way in which
a great chance has been thrown away; for no one can now hope to put
right what has been done wrong or to make the exhibition a good one.
The electric tram service of the city is excellent, and for a few
centavos you are transported miles into the many beautiful suburbs in
which the capital rejoices. Fairest of these is Chapultepec and its
park, where on a Sunday you can sit under the shade of giant laurels and
cypresses and listen to the really excellent music of the band of the
Republican Guard (the Mexican Life Guards). Chapultepec is historic.
There in 1847 the military cadets made their renowned stand against the
Americans, a glorious piece of fighting which is memorialised in a
statue group--the names of the fallen lads engraved on the plinth. The
castle--singularly un-castle-y--with somewhat the appearance of a
glorified hydropathic, stands on a rock about 150 feet high (Chapultepec
means "hill of the grasshopper"), the site of Moctezuma's summer palace.
Beneath it lie the palace grounds intersected by shady drives and
ornamental waters fringed with a wealth of flowering shrubs. From the
height you get an unexampled view, down the superb drive of the Paseo,
of the city ringed round with volcanic hills purpled with a sunny mist.
To the gate of the park an endless procession of trams comes, filled to
overflowing. Sunday is Chapultepec's great day, and all the sunny
afternoon laughing, gaily dressed crowds file through the paths or
linger round the bandstand; while the roadways are packed with slowly
moving lines of wonderful carriages drawn by really fine animals; and on
the shady unmacadamised edges of the carriageways canter as superb a
collection of riding horses as it would be possible to see in any
capital outside a horse show. There is no animal lovelier than a
well-bred horse, and though the Mexican steeds are small, they are--at
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