THE FLOATING GARDENS OF

MEXICO.

A MARRIAGE IN HIGH LIFE. I AM very fond of weddings, and, to abandon for a moment the egotism and engrossing self-sufficiency which so delightfully characterize my sex, fancy that the sight of the solemnization of matrimony has equal charms for that better part of creation, whose special vocation it is, under all circumstances, to be married and happy, but who are oft-times, alas! as hopelessly celibate as the Trappist. One can scarcely go to a wedding without seeing some of these brave knights-errant, these preux chevalières of womanhood, these uncloistered nuns, these hermits in a vale of wax-lights and artificial flowers, clustering in the galleries, or furtively ensconced in pews near the altar. They are very liberal to the pew-openers, these kind old maids, and are always ready with smelling-bottles if there be any fainting going on. They take their part in the crying with praiseworthy perseverance, and echo the responses in heart-rending sobs; they press close to the bride as she comes down the aisle on the arm of her spouse, and eye her approvingly and the bridesmaids criticisingly.

THE greater part of the vegetables consumed in Mexico are cultivated in the chinampas, called by Europeans floating gardens. They are of two kinds; some are movable, and frequently driven up and down by the wind; others firm, and fixed to the shore. The former can be termed floating, but the number of these is daily lessening. The ingenious invention of the chinampas I is traceable to the end of the fourteenth century, and the idea was probably suggested to the Aztecas by nature itself. On the marshy banks of the lakes of Xochimilcho and Chalco, the waters, in their periodical swellings, throw up clods and mounds of earth, covered with grass and tangled roots. These masses, after floating for a long time up and down, the sport of every breeze, sometimes form into groups of small islets. The most ancient chinampas were only turf-mounds artficially joined, and then filled and planted by the Aztecas. These floating islands are found in every zone. The industry of the Aztecan nation has brought to great perfection the idea suggested by the masses of earth broken off from How many women-young, fair, and acthe banks of the rivers. The floating gar-complished, pure, and good, and wise-are dens, found by the Spaniards in great num- doomed irrevocably to solitude and celibacy! bers, and many of which are still to be found Every man knows such premature old maids; in the Lake of Chalco, were a sort of rafts sees among a family of blooming girls one formed of reeds, rushes, and rough, prickly, who already wears the stigmata of old tangling shrubs, and covered by the Indians maidenhood. It chills the blood to see with a layer of rich earth, impregnated with these hopeless cases, to see the women remuriate of soda. This salt is gradually ex- sign themselves to their fate with a sad, tracted from the soil by watering it with meek smile-to come back, year after year, the water of the lake, and the ground is and find them still meek, smiling, but sad, more or less fertilized according to the more confirmed old maids. It is ill for me, who or less frequent application of this lye; for dwell in quite a Crystal Palace of a glass such, even when salt, the water becomes by house, to throw so much as a grain of sand filtration through the soil. The chinampas at the windows opposite, but I cannot refrain sometimes contain a hut for the Indian in from sermonising my fellows on their selfcharge of a group of these floating gardens, conceited; bachelorhood. What dullards which can be towed or impelled by long were those writers in the "Times" newspoles at pleasure, from one side of the river paper about marriage and three hundred a to the other; but most of those now known year! Are there no such things as toil, by the name are fixed, and as this happens energy, perseverance? husband and wife just in proportion to the distance of the fresh-cheering one another on, and in wealth at water lake from the salt-water lake, many are to be found along the Vega, in the marshy soil between the Lake of Chalco and the Lake of Tezcuco. Each chinampa forms a parallelogram, three hundred feet long and about twenty in breadth, and is separated from its neighbour by a narrow dyke. In these chinampas are cultivated beans, peas, capsicums, potatoes, artichokes, and a great variety of other vegetables, and the borders are generally edged with flowers.

last pleasantly talking of the old times, the
struggles and difficulties? We hear a great
deal now-a-days about people's missions.
The proper mission of men is to marry, and
of women to bear children.
But here we
are at a fashionable wedding at St. James's
Church, Piccadilly.

How eloquent, and, by turns, pathetic and humorous, I could be on the bevy of youthful bridesmaids-all in white tulle over pink glacié silk, all in bonnets trimmed

theon was then illuminated, as for a funeral; the sarcophagus, with its contents, was placed in exactly the same spot whence the remains had been taken. The Presidents of the various Academies were present, with the Cavalier Fabris at their head. Each bore a brick, which he inserted in the brickwork with which the sepulchre was walled in. And so the painter awaits "the resurrection of the just," and the fellowship of saints and angels, of which his inspired pencil has given us the highest realization on earth.

METHOD.

body. The labourers raised the stone with the utmost care, and having dug within for about a foot and a half, came to a void space. You can hardly conceive the enthusiasm of us all, when, by a final effort, the workmen exhibited to our view the remains of a coffin, with an entire skeleton in it, lying thus as originally placed, and thinly covered with damp dust. We saw at once quite clearly that the tomb had never been opened, and it thus became manifest that the skull possessed by the Academy of St. Luke was not that of Raffaelle. Our first care was, by gentle degrees, to remove from the body the dust which covered it, and which we religiously collected, with the purpose of placing it in a new sarco- A LADY was complimenting a clergyman phagus. Amongst it we found, in tole- on the fact that she could always recolrable preservation, pieces of the coffin lect and recite more of the matters of (which was made of deal), fragments of a his sermon than those of any other minispainting which had ornamented the lid, ter she was in the habit of hearing. several bits of Tiber clay, formations She could not account for this; but she from the water of the river which had thought the fact was worthy of observapenetrated into the coffin by infiltration, tion. The reverend gentleman remarked an iron stelletta, a sort of spur, with that he thought he could explain the which Raffaelle had been decorated by cause. "I happen," he said, "to make Leo X., several fibule, and a number of a particular point of classifying my topics metal anelli, portions of his dress." These-it is a hobby of mine to do so; and small rings had fastened the shroud; several were retained by the sculptor Fibris, who also took casts of the head and hand, and Camuccini took views of the tomb and its precious contents. From one of these our cut is copied.

therefore I never compose a sermon without first settling the relationship and order of my arguments and illustration. Suppose, madam, that your servant was starting for town, and you were obliged hastily to instruct her about a few domestic purchases, not having time to write down the items; and suppose you said, 'Be sure to bring some tea, also some soap, and coffee too, by the by, and some powder-blue; and don't forget a few light cakes, and a little starch and some sugar; and now I think of it, soda'

On the following day the body was further examined by professional men: the skeleton was found to measure five feet seven inches. The narrowness of the coffin indicated a slender and delicate frame. This accords with the contemporary accounts, which say he was of a refined and delicate constitution; his frame-you would not be surprised if her was all spirit; his physical strength so limited that it was a wonder he existed so long as he did. The investigation completed, the body was exhibited from the 20 to the 24th, and then was again placed in a new coffin of lead, and that in a marble sarcophagus presented by the Pope, and taken from the antiquities in the Museum of the Vatican. A solemn mass was then announced for the evening of the 18th of October, The Pan

memory failed with regard to one or two of the articles. But if your commission ran thus-'Now, Mary, to-morrow we are going to have some friends to tea, therefore bring a supply of tea and coffee, and sugar and light cakes; and the next day, you know, is washing day, so that we shall want soap, and starch, and soda, and powder-blue'-it is most likely she would retain your order as easily as you retain my sermon."