COLUMBUS STATUE, CITY OF MEXICO.
The Columbus monument, in the Paseo de la Reforma, in the City of Mexico, was erected at the charges of Don Antonio Escandon, to whose public spirit and enterprise the building of the Vera Cruz & Mexico Railway was due. The monument is the work of the French sculptor Cordier. The base is a large platform of basalt, surrounded by a balustrade of iron, above which are five lanterns. From this base rises a square mass of red marble, ornamented with four basso-relievos; the arms of Columbus, surrounded with garlands of laurels; the rebuilding of the monastery of Santa Maria de la Rábida; the discovery of the Island of San Salvador; a fragment of a letter from Columbus to Raphael Sanchez, beneath which is the dedication of the monument by Señor Escandon. Above the basso-relievos, surrounding the pedestals, are four life-size figures in bronze; in front and to the right of the statue of Columbus (that stands upon a still higher plane), Padre Juan Perez de la Marchena, prior of the Monastery of Santa Maria de la Rábida, at Huelva, Spain; in front and to the left, Padre Fray Diego de Deza, friar of the Order of Saint Dominic, professor of theology at the Convent of St. Stephen, and afterward archbishop of Seville. He was also confessor of King Ferdinand, to the support of which two men Columbus owed the royal favor; in the rear, to the right, Fray Pedro de Gante; in the rear, to the left, Fray Bartolomé de las Casas—the two missionaries who most earnestly gave their protection to the Indians, and the latter the historian of Columbus. Crowning the whole, upon a pedestal of red marble, is the figure of Columbus, in the act of drawing aside the veil that hides the New World. In conception and in treatment this work is admirable; charming in sentiment, and technically good. The monument stands in a little garden inclosed by iron chains hung upon posts of stone, around which extends a large glorieta.