Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/193

Rh deeper emotions than it looks on our feeble products, even such as may seem very grand when compared with our meanest efforts.

To the north of east rises Malinche, brown and green to its summit, and sometimes white there also, and red even, and black, when the smoke and fires of the volcano mix their colors with its snows and sides. This was named by Cortez for his Marina; his Indian interpreter, and himself also, being known to the Indian allies and foes by the name of Malinche. It is the only one of the volcanoes that lost its old Indian name. The three grander ones preserved their original titles while they changed owners. It lies nearest Puebla, and looks not five miles off, though it will be twenty ere you reach its base, if you gallop from this plaza.

Farther to the north, and trenching a little on the west, is a range of whitened cliffs, without any vegetation seemingly, at this distance, or possibility of any. These scarred bluffs, that look as if made of salt, are Tlascala, the next most famous spot in Mexico to Mexico herself. For there was the little republic of mountaineers that never submitted to the Aztec yoke; whom Cortez first conquered, and who never failed to be his allies afterward; on whom he relied to carry him through all his perils, and to whom he gave his banner, that still hangs in the church of the town; to whom also he gave political liberties that have never been taken away. A railroad station is not three miles from their city, called by the name of the pluckiest, worst, and best specimen of the Mexican of to-day—Santa Anna. So closely is Cortez linked to this present.

It was from that hill fortress that he marched on Cholula because they told him not to; so his line of march is visible to the eye from this tower. Across these low spurs of these inclosing mountains his band of less than four hundred footmen, and a score or two of horsemen, moved slowly upon the priestly town, confident in their arms, their horses, their faith, their leader, and themselves—a five-fold cord which was not easily broken, though often attempted in the terrible strain of the eighteen months which followed.