Travels in the United States, etc.,: during 1849 and 1850./ By the Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley.

TRAVELS IN AMERICA.
Indian idols, amulets, and ornaments (mostly cut in obsidian, I
believe). Many of the idols and figures bear a striking resemblance
to Egyptian images.
Among ancient curiosities were some modern ones-eastern
mirrors and Chinese nondescripts, and some marvelously well-executed figures, made of rags by the modern Mexicans. An old
woman, who is dying they say, is the only person (except a daughter of hers, whom she has taught) who knows how to make them
now. There are wax ones that are also clever, but they are very
common, and not to be compared to those of this " Ragged School"
of Art.
At one end of the room there was a little plant of the manita
flower; there are but three trees of the Arbol de las Manitos
(Cheirostemon platanifolium), I am informed, in Mexico: it
grows to a considerable size. Two are to be found in the Botanical Gardens, and one is in the Toluca Mountains.
I was introduced in the Mluseum to an English gentleman, who
has lately arrived here from a sojourn of two years in Siberia-a
voluntary exile. He then left Kamtschatka in a Russian merchant
vessel, visited Polynesia, and subsequently the interior of South
America. He had just come from the western coast of Mexico,
and intends going from Vera Cruz by the next packet, on his way
home. W7hat an extensive and interesting tour!
After the stillness and seclusion of the Museum, and the grim
company of so many grinning idols and dusty relies of the past, the
gay streets, overflowing as usual with pedestrians, horsemen, and
carriages, seemed doubly exhilarating and amusing; not that I did
not appreciate those memorials of the olden time, and wish there
were many more of them, unspoiled and unshattered: for well
says the old Mexican, Ant. de Gama, "Quantos preciosos monumentos de la antiquedad por falta de intelligenza, habran perecido
en esta manera."
I wish I could give any adequate idea of the beauty of Mexico,
it is so unlike any other place in the world. Humboldt says, setting aside its very peculiar situation, that it is one of the very finest
cities ever built by Europeans in either hemisphere, being only inferior to St. Petersburgh, London, Berlin, or Philadelphia, as respects the regularity and length of its streets, as well as the extent
of its public places. But then to make these compare with charming Mexico, you must widen and adorn those streets with those
gay covered colonades, the portales (the despicable and discarded
lRegent-street covered way gave not the slightest idea of them),
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