Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/299

Rh The hill where he was killed is only a mile from the town. It is about a hundred feet high—a Bunker Hill in size, height, and history; for here Mexico achieved, in her way, her independence. He was placed a little below the summit, facing the east, looking toward Miramar and his mother's house. A sketch, made at the time, gives the sad scene. The three men stand apart from each other, and guards of soldiers are on either side. Easy and graceful in their attitudes, calm of feature, they await the shot that sends them to another world; let us hope a world where there is no war, nor wickedness, nor woe.

The spot where he fell is marked by a heap of stones, cast up without order by living hands. Many of these stones are marked with a cross. Some of them have three crosses on them, some five—the most sacred sign—emblematic of the five wounds of Christ.

This is the tribute of his party and Church, and could not have been done in many cities of the country. It shows how badly the cross is blasphemed, and justifies our Puritan fathers for abolishing its use altogether. It came to signify spiritual tyranny and superstition, and was rightly rejected. So these rude scratches are evidence of hostility to republican and tolerant ideas, of bitterest hostility to true Christianity. It may yet burst forth, not in crosses alone, but in crucifixion also.

The view from this Hill of the Bells is uncommonly fine. The valley lies about you, full of verdure. Never did any valley look lovelier. Hundreds of acres of wheat and barley and lucern, greenest of the green, seem in a race for superiority in color, while the trees are not behind in beauty. Flowers of richest hue glow in the gardens, and the city stands forth, with its glittering towers and domes, a spectacle long to be remembered. It would be hard to find the equal in beauty of this combination of high, bold cliffs, ranges of hills, velvet meadows, and stately churches.

The river makes the town. But for that, this valley would be as dry and yellow as that of Mexico. As it is, one can not see within the circuit of the spurs of the hills a barren spot. If but George L. Brown were only here to put this scene on his burning canvas,