On a building at the side of the causeway we notice “Estacion de Mejico” (Mexico Station) painted in large letters.  As far as we could observe, this very suggestive sign-board is the whole plant of the Railway Company at this end of the line.  A range of hills ends abruptly in the plain, at a place which the Indians called Tepeyacac, “end of the hill” (literally “at the hill’s nose").  Our causeway leads to this spot; and there, at the foot and up the slope of the hill, are built the great cathedral and other churches and chapels, altogether a vast and imposing collection of buildings; and round these a considerable town has grown up, for this is the great place of pilgrimage in the country.

The Spaniards had brought a miraculous picture with them, Nuestra Senora de Remedios, which is still in the country, and many pilgrims visit it; but Our Lady of Guadalupe is a native Mexican, and decidedly holds the first rank in the veneration of the people.

In the great church there is a picture mounted in a gold frame of great value.  Its distance from the altar-rails, and the pane of glass which covers it, prevent one’s seeing it very well.  This was the more unfortunate, as, according to my history, the picture is in itself evidently of miraculous origin, for the best artists are agreed that no human hand could imitate the drawing or the colour!  It appears that the Aztecs, long before the arrival of the Spaniards, had been in the habit of worshipping—­in this very place—­a goddess, who was known as Teotenantzin, “mother-god,” or Tonantzin, “our mother.”  Ten years after the Conquest, a certain converted Indian, Juan Diego (John James) by name, was passing that way, and to him appeared the Virgin Mary.  She told him to go to the bishop, and tell him to build her a temple on the place where she stood, giving him a lapful of flowers as a token.  When the flowers were poured out of the garment, in presence of the bishop, the miraculous picture appeared underneath, painted on the apron itself.  The bishop accepted the miracle with great unction; the temple was built, and the miraculous image duly installed in it.  Its name of “Santa Maria de Guadalupe,” was not, as one might imagine, taken from the Madonna of that name in Spain (of course not!), but was communicated by Our Lady herself to another converted Indian.  She told him that her title was to be Santa Maria de Tequatlanopeuh, “Saint Mary of the rocky hill,” of which hard word the Spaniards made “Guadalupe,”—­just as they had turned Quauhnahuac into Cuernavaca, and Quauhaxallan into Guadalajara, substituting the nearest word of Spanish form for the unpronounceable Mexican names.  This at least is the ingenious explanation given by my author, the Bachelor Tanco, Professor of the Aztec language, and of Astrology, in the University of Mexico, in the year 1666.  The bishop who authenticated the miracle was no less a person than Fray Juan de Zumarraga, whose name is well known in Mexican history, for it was he who collected together all the Aztec picture-writings that he could find, “quite a mountain of them,” say the chroniclers, and made a solemn bonfire of them in the great square of Tlatelolco.  The miracles worked by the Virgin of Guadalupe, and by copies of it, are innumerable; and the faith which the lower orders of Mexicans and the Indians have in it is boundless.