Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/367

splendid tapestries wrought in old Spain by royal hands, paintings by old masters, a wilderness of statuary gilded and graven and sanctified by years of worship, make the cathedral of Puebla one of the sights of Mexico. Here, also, in a city of churches, convents and priests, was a branch of the Inquisition, under the care of Dominican friars; its buildings have recently been purchased from the government by the Methodist mission. One of the gilded rooms of which they took possession had in its walls a door which had been plastered up. This was knocked open, and a room was found in which were many human skeletons. The hapless victims had evidently been let down through a well-like opening overhead and left alone to die, the living among the dead. From the courtyard of this terrible prison thirteen cartloads of human bones were taken before it could be made suitable for the purposes of the mission.