Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/269

Rh From this neighborhood we drove back through the southern part of the city, to the Garita de San Cosme, and along the great San Cosme aqueduct, which was constructed by the forced labor of the Indians under the Spaniards over three hundred years ago.



It is seven miles long, and still supplies the city with Water; but the Mexican Railway Company is laying down pipes to take its place, and it will soon pass away.

Near the garita stands the famous, old cypress tree under which, or as some say, in the branches of which, Fernando Cortez and his subordinate officers were hidden on the "Noche Triste" while his troops and Indian allies were cutting their way out of the city, and across the morass which they had bridged with the bodies of their dead. The gnarled and twisted trunk of the old cypress is over sixty feet in circumference, and its age may be anywhere from one to four