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We have received the following very interesting letter from the City of Mexico:

Dear Editor:

I read in one of last July's numbers of The Great Round World a request for further information about the Empress Carlotta or the Emperor Maximilian.

We have a little summer home in the same town of Cuernavaca where they had their residence.

I don't wonder that they chose it for a summer home, it is such a beautiful spot and the climate perfection. It is fifty miles in air-line from the City of Mexico.

Their residence in Cuernavaca was an old place called "Jardin de la Borda." The house is of no importance, but the garden is one of the beautiful sights of Mexico; though now in a state of ruin, it is all fountains, terraces, lakes, flowers, and trees.

The Emperor also had his shooting-lodge about three miles out, with a small house on the grounds. Madame D—— (who was maid of honor to the Empress) told my mother that it was used simply as a resting-place for the huntsmen and a place of picnicking by the court. It is called "Casa del Campo." It is also in a ruinous state, is rented for $100 per year silver, and is used as a kind of beer-garden.

About ten miles from the town of Cuernavaca there is the magnificent hacienda of Atlascomulco, originally owned by Hernan Cortez. The greater portion of the building stands as Cortez left it, the walls being in many places five feet thick.

In the orchard attached is a small one-story house where Maximilian spent many hours of his stay at Cuernavaca; and there in a small room he signed the famous "Banda Negra" (Black Decree) which caused him to be so hated and which hastened his fall.

There are still to be seen the table, chair, and pen said to have been used by Maximilian when he signed the Black Decree. John R. D., Jr.

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