Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/36

 mentioned this to the trooper, and asked him where he put the powder? "There, to be sure," said he, pointing to the pan. "And how do you fire it?" "Pshaw," replied the fellow, staggering off—"'tis better so." He was half drunk, and as ridiculous as his weapon. If these are the soldiers of Mexico, they hardly rise to the dignity of respectable scare-crows.

We were soon called to coach, and mounting our vehicle with better spirits for the refreshment and morning air, we shortly entered a rolling country, with an occasional ruinous hamlet and plantation. Although the scenery was in spots exceedingly romantic, interspersed with upland and valley, and covered with a profusion of tropical trees and flowers, there was over the whole an air of abandonment which could not fail to strike one painfully. In a new country, as a traveller passes by a solitary bridle-path, over the plains and hills, hidden by the primeval forests fresh as they came from Nature's hand, there is matter for agreeable reflection, in fancying what the virgin soil will produce in a few years when visited by industry and taste. But here, Nature instead of being pruned of her luxuriance with judicious care, has been literally sapped and exhausted, and made old even in her youth, until she again begins to renew her empire among ruins. It is true, that traces of old cultivation are yet to be found, and also the remains of a former dense population. The sides of the hills, in many places, as in Chili and Peru, are cut into terraces; but over those plains and slopes is spread a wild growth of mimosas, cactus, and acacias, while a thousand flowering parasite-plants trail their gaudy blossoms among the aloes and shrubbery which fill up the rents of time and neglect in the dilapidated buildings. It is the picture of a beauty, prematurely old, tricked out in all the fanciful finery of youth!

We wound along among these silent hills until about ten o'clock, when a rapid descent brought us to the National Bridge, built by the old Spanish Government, and enjoying then the sounding title of Puente del Rey. Changed in name, it has not, however, changed in massive strength, or beauty of surrounding scenery. Indeed, the neglect of cultivation, has permitted Nature to regain her power, and the features of the scenery are therefore more like those of some of the romantic ravines of Italy, where the remains of architecture and the luxuriant products of the soil are blent in wild and romantic beauty.

The Puente Nacional spans the river Antigua, which passes over a rocky bed in a deep dell of high and perpendicular rocks. The adjacent heights of this mountain pass have been strongly fortified during the wars; among their fastnesses and defiles the revolutionary generals lay concealed in Iturbide's time, and finally descended from them to conclude the fight in favor of independence.

At Puente, there is a village containing the usual number of comfortable cane huts, before which the neighboring Indians had spread out for sale their fruits and wares; while the Mexicans (as it was Sunday) were amusing themselves by gambling at monté for clacos. At the inn a