MUSEUM.—BOTANIC GARDEN.—MARKET.
The National Museum has its weekly exhibitions, and attracts as great a crowd of the common people as does the Academy of Arts. Here as perfect equality reigns as in the San Carlos or in the Cathedral. The first object of interest is the large collection of stone idols which have been dug up from time to time in and about the Grand Plaza. There are dog-faced idols, and apish gods, and unearthly things, besides the sacrificial stone, and a rude attempt to represent a goddess. Whether or no this was a sort of Aztec Lady of Remedies I did not learn. The Aztecs might easily have produced these works without exhibiting much civilization; but I have heard it surmised that they must have been among the plunder of more civilized tribes.
On the two opposite sides of the first hall we entered, I saw spread out the pictorial chronology of two dynasties that had passed away—the vice-regal line of potentates standing over against the royal line of Aztec emperors. The portraits of the vice-kings, from Cortéz down to the last of his successors, stretch entirely across one side of the hall, and about the same number of Indian caçiques are daubed upon a piece of papyrus that is fastened upon the opposite wall. It requires the greatest possible stretch of liberality for one accustomed to Indian efforts of this kind to dignify such intolerable daubs with the name of paintings. And yet this is the picture-writing of the Aztecs, with which the world has been so edified for centuries. If there is or ever was an Iroquois Indian that should undertake to stain so miserably, I verily believe he would be expelled from his tribe. To make it manifest that this was intended for a chronological record of the imperial line, black lines were daubed from one of these effigies to another. From a printed label in Spanish affixed to this wonderful relic, I learned that it was intended to represent the wanderings of the Aztecs from California.
It is usual for North American Indians to store up traditions of the extensive wanderings of their ancestors, and if one is asked to represent the tradition on bark, he would produce very much such an affair as this, though with a somewhat greater resemblance to the human form. Another picture represents Marianna, the mistress of Cortéz, with her rosary, and Cortéz with his fingers in much such a position as boys place them in when they wish to convey the idea that they have perpetrated a joke—a very satisfactory method of representing the piety of Cortéz. Close by the pious couple is the representation of a scene which they seem to have come out to witness. A bloodhound is represented tearing an Indian to pieces, while a Spaniard is holding on to the end of the dog's chain.
The banner under which Cortéz fought, or rather one of them—for he had two—is here preserved in a gilt frame. It represents the Virgin Mary portrayed on crimson silk. In this hall is also a miniature representation of a silver mine, with the workmen at their several branches of labor. The remains of the vice-regal throne are here piled up in a corner.
In the next room there are some paintings of no very great value, which should have been kept in the Academy; also a miniature fortress and a small mineral collection, and any quantity of specimens of Indian idols, so misshapen as to be unfit for use as images of the Virgin and of the saints.
As a Vice-royal and National Museum, the whole affair is beneath contempt. If the few articles in it that are valuable were divided between the Mineria and the San Carlos, and the rest thrown away, it would be an advantage to all concerned. The Indian relics in this museum are not only much inferior to the specimens of the art of the savage islanders of the South Seas, but immensely inferior to many private collections of Indian curiosities that I have seen, and they go far to demonstrate the entire absence of civilized arts among the aboriginal inhabitants of Mexico.
In an interior court of the museum is the Botanic Garden. This, like the National Museum, is a paltry affair. With the exception of the Manolita, or tree that bears a flower resembling the human hand, of which there are but two in the Republic, there is nothing deserving of notice in this garden. In the large interior court of San Francisco a Frenchman has, as a private speculation, opened a garden and made a collection of the national plants of Mexico that is well worth a visit. In this private garden is one of the finest and rarest collections of the cactus family that I have ever seen, either in Mexico or elsewhere.
The market of Santa Anna is the central market of the city. It adjoins the palace, and is close to the canal. The products of the chinampas are here displayed to the best advantage. As Mexico is within easy marketing distance of the hot country, we have here daily presented the fresh productions of two zones. This is one of the places where the appetite of a stranger can not only be gratified with the greatest variety of delicacies ever collected in one spot, but the excellency and abundance of the articles presented are perplexing to the person who would venture upon the bold experiment of tasting every new article offered to him. As a vegetable and flower market, it has no equal.
THE ACORDADA.