Page:Life in Mexico vol 1.djvu/130

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110
GUADALUPE.

atre looked much more decent than before; being lighted up, and the boxes hung with silk draperies in honor of the occasion. The ladies also were in full dress, and the boxes crowded, so that one could scarcely recognise the house.

This morning we drove out to see the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe; C——n in one carriage with Count C——a, and the Señora C——a and I in another, driven by Señor A——d, who is a celebrated whip; the carriage open, with handsome white horses, frisones as they here call the northern horses, whether from England or the United States, and which are much larger than the spirited little horses of the country. As usual, we were accompanied by four armed out-riders.

We passed through miserable suburbs, ruined, dirty, and with a commingling of odors which I could boldly challenge those of Cologne to rival. After leaving the town, the road is not particularly pretty, but is for the most part, a broad, strait avenue, bounded on either side by trees.

At Guadalupe, on the hill of Tepayac, there stood in days of yore, the Temple of Tonantzin, the goddess of earth and of corn, a mild deity, who rejected human victims, and was only to be propitiated by the sacrifices of turtle-doves, swallows, pigeons, &c. She was the protectress of the Totonoqui Indians. The spacious church, which now stands at the foot of the mountain, is one of the richest in Mexico. Having put on veils, no bonnets being permitted within the precincts of a church, we entered this far-famed