Page:Into Mexico with General Scott (1920).djvu/176

 The First Brigade set out gaily; General Worth and staff; Company A, engineers, with Acting Captain George W. Smith, Lieutenant J. C. Foster and the sprightly Lieutenant McClellan; Light Battery A and Companies B, C, D, F, G, H, I and K, Second Artillery; Companies B, G and K, Third Artillery; A, B, C, D, E and I, Fourth Infantry. They marched up the National Road through fields of grain, around the base of dark Pizarro Mountain (a lone peak higher than Perote Peak), and had covered eighteen miles when halt was made for the night at a homely mud village.

The country again grew better, displaying fruit orchards and green ranches. A fight was rather expected at the pass of El Pinal, where the road threaded a third narrow gorge in a range of bare, granite hills; but although rocks had been heaped in readiness to be rolled down upon the heads of any enemy, nobody was here to roll them.

Beyond El Pinal the road issued upon a high, flat ridge. The column suddenly forgot its weariness. Another stately view unfolded. In the west there uplifted two splendid mountains. The highest, shining with snow, was the famous Popocatepetl, or Smoky Mountain, three miles high. The other, its comrade on the north of it, was—well, a jaw-breaker: Iztaccihuatl. It, too, was a famous peak. The two of them overlooked the City of Mexico.

And between the flat ridge and the range of the two peaks there lay the beautiful green valley of Puebla, dotted with the white-walled country-houses of wealthy ranchers; and in the midst of the valley,