the peasant army when the patriot priest, Hidalgo, led the volunteers to victory and struck the first blow for independence, when in October, 1810, he defeated the royal forces. Here are memorials of the republican generals and presidents of Mexico, portraits in oil of the unfortunate Maximilian and the fatalist, Napoleon III, and precious souvenirs of the Empress Carlotta, when, surrounded by an entourage of youth and beauty and princely birth, she reigned a queen in the royal palace of Chapultepec. In a lower room is the magnificent coach and carriage of state of Maximilian and his imperial consort. They are one and all painful reminders of the mutability and insecurity of high hopes, and that the "paths of glory lead but to the grave." No city in the world, not even Madrid, may boast

of

any collection of the paleolithic and the neolithic periods, that is the ages of stone implements, chipped, ground or polished, as rich in the quantity, quality and variety of specimens as that in the Hall of Monoliths of the National Mexican Museum. Affrighted man recoils with horror from the presence of these dumb and ghastly witnesses of a cruel and merciless race. To the student of ethnology these monuments drip blood, the blood of innocent children, helpless women, and defeated men, immolated on these stones of sacrifice to the gods of the victorious Aztecs. Right in front of the arch of entrance is what is known as the "Calendar Stone," a huge monolithic disc weighing sixty thousand pounds. Archaeologists have almost come to blows disputing

the origin and import of the extraordinary carvings on the dial. How this stupendous mass was hewn from its basaltic bed without the aid of iron tools, and transported fifteen miles over land and water without draught animals is yet an unsolved problem. The astronomer Gama contends that the carvings on this colossal monolith prove that the Aztecs could count the hours of the day accurately, the periods of the soltices and of the equinoxes, and measure the transit of the sun across the zenith of Mexico. The stone idols, the repulsive and atrocious figures carved from porphyry and eruptive stone, the numerous serpent idols, coiled, feathered, and recumbent, are so loathsome and hideous as to convince one that the religion of the early Mexicans was one of fear and horror. The famous Palenque cross was brought here from Uxmal, Yucatan, and fills a conspicuous space in the museum. The Aztecs worshipped the cross as the God of Rain. There are many strangely shaped, stone emblems of the cross in this monolithic hall. But this Palenque cross and the one dug up at Mitla are marvels. Sculptured in high relief on a tablet nine feet by four, is a tall, well-proportioned man presenting with uplifted arms a child as an ex voto offering to the cross, the central figure of the tablet. Here also is the vase into which the heart torn from the human victim was thrown as a gift to the God of Death, after the offering to the sun. A volume, gruesome it is true, but of absorbing interest, might be written on the objects exposed in this fearful room.

From stereograph, copyright 1903, by Underwood & Underwood, New York

PLAZA AND CHURCH OF SANTO DOMINGO, MEXICO CITY

CHAPTER XII

RUINS OF MITLA-PYRAMID OF CHOLULA-IN
MYSTERIOUS MEXICO

Son of the morning, rise, approach you here,

Come, but molest not yon defenceless urn.

Look on this spot, a nation's sepulchre,

Abode of gods, whose shrines no longer burn.

-Childe Harold.

MEXICO is a land of ruins, and after centuries of occupation we are now only beginning to appreciate the achievements of its ancient people, and to understand the difficulty of solving the problem of its prehistoric settlement. On my return to Mexico City from Durango I left early one morning to examine the famous ruins of the Toltec town of Mitla. These wonderful buildings are near the junction of the Pachuca and Mexican Central lines to the Pacific coast, they are the despair of antiquarians, and antedate, in the opinion of Le Plongeon, the deluge.

I went out of my way a few miles to visit the giant tree of Tule, which stands in the churchyard of Santa Maria del Tule. This is one of the biggest trees in the world, not excepting those redwood giants of Calaveras, California. It is one hundred and ten feet high and six feet from the ground is one hundred and fifty-four feet in circumference. It is said that twenty-eight persons with their out