So much for one cause of the change in the present appearance of the city.  Then the Spaniards were great cutters down of forests.  They rather liked to make their new country bear a resemblance to the arid plains of Castile, where, when you arrive in Madrid, people ask you whether you noticed the tree on the road; and moreover, as they wanted wood, they cut it, without troubling themselves to plant for the benefit of future generations.  Now, when the trees were cut down, the small plants which grew in their shade died too, and left the bare earth to serve as a kind of natural evaporating apparatus.  And, between these two causes, it has come to pass that the extent of the lakes has been so much reduced, and that Mexico stands on the dry land—­if, indeed, that may be called dry land, where you cannot dig a foot without coming to water.

During the Tertiary period the whole valley of Mexico was one great lake.  Whether the proportion of water to land had adjusted itself before the country was inhabited, or whether during historical times the lakes were still gradually diminishing by the excess of evaporation over the quantity of water supplied by rain and snow, is an open question.  At any rate the two causes I have mentioned will account for the changes which have taken place since the conquest.

Taking it as a whole, Mexico is a grand city, and, as Cortes truly said, its situation is marvellous.  But as for the buildings, I should be sorry to inflict upon any one who may read these sketches, a detailed description of any one of them.  It is a thousand pities that, just at the time when the Italians and Spaniards were most zealous in church-building, so very questionable an architectural taste should have been prevalent.

The churches and convents in Mexico belong to that kind of renaissance style that began to flourish in southern Europe in the sixteenth century, and has held its ground there ever since.  High facades abound, with pilasters crowned by elaborate Corinthian capitals, forming a curious contrast with the mean little buildings crouched behind the tall front.  In the doors of the churches outside, and the chapels within, one is constantly coming upon that peculiar construction which consists of what would be an arch, resting on two pillars, were not the keystone wanting.  Columns with shafts elaborately sculptured, and twisted marble pillars of the bed-post pattern, are to be seen by hundreds, very expensive in material and workmanship, but unfortunately very ugly; while the numbers of puffy cherubs, inside and out, remind the Englishman of the monuments of St. Paul’s.

As to the interior decoration of the churches, the richer ones are crowded with incongruous ornaments to a wonderful degree.  Gold, silver, costly marbles, jewels, stucco, paint, tinsel, and frippery are all mixed up together in the wildest manner.  We found the inside of the churches to be generally the worst part of them.  The Cathedral, for instance, is really a very grand building when seen from a little distance, with its two high towers and its cupola behind.  I was greatly edified by finding it described in the last book of Mexican travels I have read, as built in the purest Doric style.