Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/396

 384 The hacienda from which this battle takes its name is north of the field, and some two or three miles away. It is a pretty, peaceful spot, its pinkish-white houses girting its plaza showing that it is well kept up. The fields about it are green with produce for the city of Saltillo, which is six miles still farther northward. A pulverized road, broad and usually level, with only slight rises, winds its way through the valley, which widens here to the usual park-like width, five to eight miles. There is no sight of Saltillo. Looking for it, and hastening after it, as I have been doing now this many days, the end, feelingly, of the long and hazardous journey (for no fears affect one beyond this city), still it hides itself from the eye. Where can it be? The mountains throw themselves out before us as a vast amphitheatre, whose diameter traverses a score of miles. But where can the city be? At our feet? We drive along the same dusty and level plain, and suddenly look down, and lo! Saltillo.

There is a lower level out of which that circle of the mountains swings, a hundred feet at least below the Buena Vista plain. At its upper or southern edge, which is as marked as if cut like a 'cheese against the higher plateau, crowds this Northern town. A glimpse of it, and the diligence plunges down a very rough and noisy hill, leaps past open houses, whose brown occupants hasten to the doors to see the infrequent and much-welcomed coach, and with whirl and dash and snap of whip flings itself around corners, through courts, and comes up, with its crunch, at the hotel door.

The town is enjoying its siesta; our noise awakens it. It drowsily peeps from veranda and hut upon our disturbing mules and coach, and then folds its hands to sleep. It is the hottest hour of the day, three in the afternoon. How presumptuous for the coachman to rush in upon it so early! He would not have done it but for the promise of an extra peso if he made an extra hour; for I could thereby "do" the town before dark. It was done, and the cool arcade of a pretty hotel welcomed me. Bath and clean linen, the first I had dared to assume since leaving San Luis Potosi, put me in good outward condition, and so, in a