Page:History of the War between the United States and Mexico.djvu/391

Rh upon the very verge of Lake Tezcuco. The height was completely surrounded by a deep ditch, flooded by sluices from the lake. There was a strong battery, also, on the causeway, four hundred yards in advance of the hill, another by its side, and a third, about a mile from the gate of San Lazaro. Three miles in front of El Peñon, at the hamlet of Los Reyes, a second road, though but an indifferent one, branches off to the south-west, to the village of Mexicalcingo, situated at the foot of Lake Xochimilco, on the outlet or canal leading to Mexico, from which it is about five miles distant. The ground in the vicinity of the village is low and boggy, and the bridge over the outlet was fortified, and flanked to the right and left, by powerful batteries.

Two miles south-west of Mexicalcingo, upon the opposite shore of Xochimilco, is on the Acapulco road — the first high ground west of the lake. A short distance north of the village, the road, or cause-I way, crosses the river Churubusco, over a large stone bride. This was protected by a tête du pont, with bastioned fronts regularly proportioned, and a wide ditch. The outer face of the south front was seventy five yards in length: — the eastern front was one hundred yards, and the western nearly the same. Between two and three miles south of Churubusco, at the village of San Antonio, there were strong fieldworks, containing seven batteries, with twenty-four heavy guns, and two infantry breastworks, which commanded the approaches in that direction.

Five miles north-west of Churubusco, where the