It was like getting home again to reach Mexico, we had so many friends there, though our stay had been so short.  We were fully occupied, for weeks of hard sight-seeing are hardly enough to investigate the objects of interest to be found in the city.  We saw these things under the best auspices, for Mr. Christy had letters to the Minister of Public Instruction and other people in authority, who were exceedingly civil, and did all they could to put us in the way of seeing everything we wished.  Among the places we visited, the Museum must have some notice.  It is in part of the building of the University; but we were rather surprised, when we reached the gate leading into the court-yard, to be stopped by a sentry who demanded what we wanted.  The lower storey had been turned into a barrack by the Government, there being a want of quarters for the soldiers.  As the ground-floor under the cloisters is used for the heavier pieces of sculpture, the scene was somewhat curious.  The soldiers had laid several of the smaller idols down on their faces, and were sitting on the comfortable seat on the small of their backs, busy playing at cards.  An enterprising soldier had built up a hutch with idols and sculptured stones against the statue of the great war-goddess Teoyaomiqui herself, and kept rabbits there.  The state which the whole place was in when thus left to the tender mercies of a Mexican regiment may be imagined by any one who knows what a dirty and destructive animal a Mexican soldier is.

The guardians of the Museum have treated it even worse.  People who know how often the curators of the Museums of southern Europe are ready to sell anything not very likely to be missed will not be astonished to hear of the same thing being done to a great extent some six or eight years before our visit.

The stone known as the statue of the war-goddess is a huge block of basalt covered with sculptures.  The antiquaries think that the figures on it stand for different personages, and that it is three gods,—­Huitzilopochtli the god of war, Teoyaomiqui his wife, and Mictlanteuctli the god of hell.  It has necklaces of alternate hearts and dead man’s hands, with death’s heads for a central ornament.  At the bottom of the block is a strange sprawling figure, which one cannot see now, for it is the base which rests on the ground; but there are two shoulders projecting from the idol, which show plainly that it did not stand on the ground, but was supported aloft on the tops of two pillars.  The figure carved upon the bottom represents a monster holding a skull in each hand, while others hang from his knees and elbows.  His mouth is a mere oval ring, a common feature of Mexican idols, and four tusks project just above it.  The new moon laid down like a bridge forms his forehead, and a star is placed on each side of it.  This is thought to have been the conventional representation of Mictlanteuctli (Lord of the Land of the Dead), the god of hell, which was a place of utter and eternal darkness.  Probably each victim as he was led to the altar could look up between the two pillars and see the hideous god of hell staring down upon him from above.