Page:Life in Mexico vol 2.djvu/127

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CATHEDRAL.
107

way, either upon canvass with oil colors, or upon a cement extended upon the bricks of which the floor is made, and prepared with glue, lime or clay, and soap,

Señor H——o has four young and pretty sisters, all nuns in different convents. As there are no other schools but these convents, the young girls who are sent there become attached to the nuns, and prefer remaining with them forever to returning home. After dinner, accompanied by N. Ramos Arispe, whom C——n formerly knew intimately in Madrid, and by various other ecclesiastics, we visited the boast of Puebla, the cathedral, which we did not do when we passed through the city on our arrival last year. To my mind, I have never seen anything more noble and magnificent. It is said that the rapid progress of the building was owing to the assistance of two angels, who nightly descended and added to its height, so that each morning the astonished workmen found their labor incredibly advanced. The name given to the city, "Puebla de los Angeles," is said to be owing to this tradition.

It is not so large as the cathedral of Mexico, but it is more elegant, simpler, and in better taste. Sixteen columns of exquisite marble, adorned with silver and gold, form the tabernacle, (in Mexico called el Ciprés.) This native marble, called Puebla marble, is brought from the quarries of Totamehuacan and Tecali, at two and seven leagues from the city. The floor of the cathedral is of marble—the great screens and high-backed chairs of richly carved cedar. Everything was opened to show us; the tombs where the