Tacubaya is a pleasant place on the ride of the first hills that begin to rise towards the mountain-wall of the valley.  Here rich Mexicans have country-houses in large gardens, which are interesting from the immense variety of plants which grow there, though badly kept up, and systematically stripped by the gardeners of the fruit as it gets ripe—­for their own benefit, of course.  From Tacubaya we go to Chapultepec (Grasshopper Mountain), which is a volcanic hill of porphyry rising from the plain.  On the top is the palace on which the viceroy Galvez expended great sums of money some seventy years ago, making it into a building which would serve either as a palace or as a fortress in cases of emergency.  Though the Americans charged up the hill and carried it easily in ’47, it would be a very strong place in proper hands.  It is a military school now.  On the hill is the famous grove of cypresses—­ahuehuetes[5]—­as they are called, grand trees with their branches hung with fringes of the long grey Spanish moss—­barba Espanola—­Spanish beard.  I do not know what painters think of the effect of this moss, trailing in long festoons from the branches of the trees, but to me it is beautiful; and I shall never forget where I first saw it, on a bayou of the Mississippi, winding through the depths of a great forest in the swamps of Louisiana.[6] In this grove of Chapultepec, there were sculptured on the side of the hill, in the solid porphyry, likenesses of the two Montezumas, colossal in size.  For some reason or other, I forget now what, one of the last Spanish viceroys thought it desirable to destroy them, and tried to blow them up with gunpowder.  He only partially succeeded, for the two great bas-reliefs were still very distinguishable as we rode past, though noseless and considerably knocked about.

We went home to breakfast with our friends, and looked at the title-deeds of their house in crabbed Spanish of the sixteenth century, and the great Chinese treasure-chest, still used as the strong-box of the firm, with an immense lock, and a key like the key of Dover castle.  Fine old Chinese jars, and other curiosities, are often to be found in Mexico; and they date from the time when the great galleon from Manila, which was called “el nao”—­the ship—­to distinguish it from all other ships, came once a year to Acapulco.

After breakfast, business hours begin; so we took ourselves off to visit the canal of Chalco, and the famous floating gardens—­as they are called.  On our way we had a chance of studying the conveyances our ancestors used to ride in, and availed ourselves of it.  In books on Spanish America, written at the beginning of this century, there are wonderful descriptions of the gilt coaches, with six or eight mules, in which the great folks used to drive in state on the promenades.  They are exactly the carriages that it was the height of a lady’s ambition to ride in, in the days of Sir Charles Grandison, and Mr. Tom Jones.  Here, in Mexico, they were still