VISIT TO THE COLEGIO VIZCAINO.

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of whatever country, are educated gratis. These spend the day there, and go home in the evening. The others are kept upon the plan of a convent, and never leave the institution while they belong to it; but the building is so spacious and airy, with its great galleries, and vast court and fine fountains, garden and spacious azotea, that the children are perfectly well off. There are portiéres and sisters, pretty much as in a convent; together with an old respectable Rectora; and the most perfect order and cleanliness prevails through the whole establishment.

We first visited the poor scholars, passing through the large halls where they sat with their teachers, divided into classes; sewing, writing, reading, embroidering, or casting up accounts, which last accomplishment must, I think, be sorely against the Mexican genius. One of the teachers made a little girl present me with a hair chain which she had just completed. Great order and decorum prevailed. Amongst the permanent scholars in the upper part of the institution, there are some who embroider astonishingly well surplices, altar-hangings, in short, all the church vestments, in gold or silk. In the room where these are kept, are the confessionals for the pupils. The priests are in a separate room, and the penitents kneel before the grating, which separates the two apartments. All the sleeping-rooms are scrupulously neat and clean, with two green painted beds in each, and a small parlor off it, and frequently ornamented with flowers and birds. The girls are taught to cook and iron and make themselves gene

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rally useful, thus being fitted to become excellent wives to respectable men in their own rank of life.

We

We visited the chapel, which is extremely rich and handsome, encrusted with gilding, and very large. The pupils and their teachers attend mass in the gallery above, which looks down upon the chapel and has a grating before it. Here they have the organ, and various shrines, saints, nacimientos, &c. were afterwards shown into a great hall, devoted to a different purpose, containing at one end a small theatre for the pupils to act plays in. All the walls of the long galleries are covered with old paintings on holy subjects, but many of them falling to pieces from damp or want of care. The building seems interminable, and, after wandering all through it for several hours, and visiting every thing from the old garden below, where they gave me a large bunch of roses and carnations, to the azotea above, which looks down upon every street and church and convent in Mexico - we were not sorry to rest on the antique high-backed chairs of a handsome apartment, of which the walls were hung with the portraits of the different Spanish directors of the college, in ancient court costume. Here we found that the directors had prepared a beautiful collation for us - fruit, ices, cakes, custards, jellies, wines, &c., in great profusion.

Rested and refreshed, we proceeded to visit the pupils at their different classes. At the writing-class various specimens of that polite art were presented to us. That of the elder girls was generally bad, probably from their having entered the college late in

life. That of the younger ones was much more tolerable. We saw some really beautiful specimens of embroidery. Having returned to the hall, where there was a piano, some of our party began to sing and play. The Señora Go sang an Italian air beautifully. She is evidently a scientific musician. The Señorita Hs played one of Herz's most difficult combinations with great execution, and a pretty girl, who is living in the convent, having been placed there by her novio, to keep her out of harm's way till he is prepared to give her his hand, sang a duet with another young lady, which I accompanied. Both had fine voices, but no notion of what they were singing. My friend, the Señora C― delighted us with some of the innumerable and amusing verses of the Jota Arragonesa, which seem to have neither end nor beginning, all gay and all untranslatable, or at least losing their point and wit when put into an English dress. Such as

It is impossible to see any building of this size kept more perfectly clean and neat; generally the case here in all establishments which are under petticoat government. These old Spanish institutions are cer

tainly on a magnificent scale, though now for the most part neglected, and falling to ruin; nor has any work of great consequence been attempted since the independence.

After various alarms and rumors in our house, concerning robbers, some true, some exaggerated, and some wholly false, we have at length procured two old Spanish soldiers of the Invalidos, who have taken up their quarters down stairs; and spend their time in cleaning their guns, making shoes, eating and sleeping, but as yet have had no occasion to prove their valor. Perhaps the fact of there being soldiers in the house will be sufficient to keep off the more ordinary robbers.

LETTER THE TWELFTH.

The Viga during the Carnival - Variety of equipages - The millionaires - The monks Masked ball - An alarming sight · Medical students - Dinner at the Prussian Minister's Rides on horseback - Indian love of flowers Santa Anita The Chinampas - Their origin — Indians in canoes

Song of

The Drain of

16th March.

We are now in Lent, in the midst of prayer, churchgoing and fasting. The carnival was not very gay, with the exception of a few public masked balls, and very brilliant paséos. The Viga is one of the most beautiful promenades imaginable, though it might easily be rendered still more so; but even as it is, with its fine shady trees and canal, along which the lazy canoes are constantly gliding, it would be difficult, on a fine evening, just before sunset, especially on the evening of a fête-day, to find anywhere a prettier or more characteristic scene. Which rank of society shows the most taste in their mode of enjoyment, must be left to the scientific to determine; the Indians, with their flower-garlands and guitars, lying in their canoes, and dancing and singing after their own fashion, as they glide along the water, inhaling the balmy breezes; or the ladies, who, shut up in their close carriages, promenade along in full dress