Page:Life in Mexico vol 1.djvu/408

388 roofs and walls, through which these winged messengers of destruction have passed. Ladies and children escaped, in many instances, by the azoteas, going along the street from one roof to another, not being able to pass where the cannon was planted. The Señora, with her six beautiful boys, escaped in that way to her brother's house, in the evening, and in the very thick of the firing. I was in her drawing-room to-day, which has a most forlorn appearance; the floor covered with heaps of plaster, broken pictures, bullets, broken glass, &c., the windows out, and holes in the wall that look as if they were made for the pipe of a stove to fit into.

The soldiers of both parties, who occupied the roofs of the houses, behaved with great civility; their officers, on many occasions, sending to the family with a request that they would complain of any insolence that might be shewn by their men. But no civility could ensure the safety of the dwellers in these houses.

The poor nuns have been terribly frightened, and have passed these stormy nights in prayers and hymns, which those who live near their convents say were frequently heard at midnight, in the intervals of the firing.

I went to see the Countess de Ve, and she showed me the great hole in the wall by her bedside, through which the shell made its entrée. The fragments are still lying there, so heavy that I could not lift them. All the windows at the head of that street are broken in pieces. The shops are reopened, however, and people are going about their