Page:Into Mexico with General Scott (1920).djvu/170

 were green trees and lively streams that emptied into an irrigating ditch skirting the road; and corn, coffee, plantain and banana plantations with neat white houses, instead of the cactus and brush and bare ground and huts of the tierra caliente—the warm land of the lower yellow-fever district. It all looked pretty good.

"We'll not starve hereabouts, that's sure," remarked the drummer who was plying his sticks on Jerry's left.

By the time, early evening, that Jalapa was in sight the men were tired again, and Jerry's fingers were blistered with the drumsticks. Now the road was lined on both sides with flowering shrubs and vines, and the birds were singing loudly.

General Worth directed the adjutant to have camp made on a piece of high ground near the road. The drums beat the halt. The day's up-hill march had ended a short mile out of Jalapa.

After the guards had been posted and supper had been eaten, everybody was glad enough to turn in. Tattoo, to extinguish lights and be quiet, was not needed.

When reveille sounded at daybreak, the drummers and fifers saw a beautiful scene indeed. The camp was above the clouds. Below, in the east or the direction of Vera Cruz, a thunderstorm was raging; the lightning darted through the clouds, which were white on top with the rays of the unseen sun. Only twenty-five miles in the south old Orizaba Peak shone like silver. Jerry frequently had seen it from Vera Cruz, but never had it appeared so wonderful. And on before, in the west, there was Jalapa, located