Page:Complete history of the late Mexican war.djvu/73

Rh guard-houses, the external walls of which form part of the walls which surround the city.

"Although the port of Vera Cruz is the principal one in the Gulf of Mexico, it is very dangerous during the seasons of the northers—that which is called the bay, being, in reality, nothing more than a bad roadstead. Baron Humboldt but too faithfully described the harbor of Vera Cruz when he said, that the only shelter it affords shipping is a dangerous anchorage among shoals.

"The castle of San Juan de Ulloa is unquestionably the most celebrated of all American fortresses. Its construction was commenced in the year 1582, upon a bar or bank, in front of the town of Vera Cruz, at the distance of one thousand and sixty-two Castilian varas or yards, and it is entirely surrounded by water. The centre of the area occupied by this fortress is a small island, upon which Juan de Grijalva landed a year previous to the arrival of Cortes upon the Continent, and, at that period, it accidentally received the name which it retains to this present day. It seems that there was a shrine or temple erected upon it, in which human victims were sacrificed to the Indian gods; and as the Spaniards were informed that these offerings were made in accordance with the commands of the kings of Acolhua (one of the provinces of the empire), they confounded or abbreviated this name into the word Ulloa, which they affixed to the island.

"According to a report made on the 17th of January, 1775, it was the opinion of a council of war, composed of distinguished officers, that this fortress, after all its defence were completed, would require a garrison for effective service, composed of seventeen hundred infantry soldiers, three hundred artillery, two hundred and twenty-eight sailors, and a hundred supernumeraries.