Page:Notes of the Mexican war 1846-47-48.djvu/459

Rh The Congress of the Republic of Mexico is at present seated at Queretaro City, and the news from that city is warlike and very boisterous, and it is said that the heads of the Mexican government are bragging, saying that there are fifty thousand Mexicans in this country who have not been licked and never will be licked. Thus the Mexican Congress themselves acknowledge that the gallant little band that landed at Vera Cruz in March last, has whipped all the Mexicans with the exception of fifty thousand. This ought to be satisfactory enough of what Gen. Scotts army has done, and as soon as re-enforcements arrive from the United States, we will march on to those fifty thousand unwhipped Mexicans and whip them too. You no doubt, like a great many others, have heard and read a good deal about Mexico, and particularly about the city of Mexico.

It is truly the most interesting city in this country. It fills a brilliant page in the history of that incomparable conquest of Cortez.

After its capture by the Spaniards, it was the residence of the viceroys of New Spain (as it was then called), and it is now the residence of its President, Congress and Supreme Court.

On approaching the city you behold one of the finest and most admirable views that can be brought before a human eye to see and it will never be forgotten by anyone that ever entered. it No book's opinions of correspondence of tourists, that I ever read, can describe its romantic and magnificent sceneries. The beautiful valley expands as far as the eye can reach Rich table-lands, with cultivated fields, and the city with its innumerable white domes and steeples. The snowclad volcanos Popocatepetl and Iscotafelt, a little distance to the left, with all its grandeur and extent, is indescribable.

Mexico (the Tennochtitlan of the old Mexicans), was formerly surrounded by lakes, and was a dirty, low and unhealthy city, more than half covered with water, mud and other unmentionables.