Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 2.djvu/241

Rh troops helped themselves occasionally to fruit and cane, injured trees and committed some graver offences. The consequence was that soldiers were forbidden to leave the town except on service and the officers commanding guards in the outskirts had to arrest every man guilty of such acts or pay for the damages, and in either case were held responsible for disobedience and neglect of duty.

Of all the places occupied by American troops in Mexico the most delightful was Jalapa. In fact, probably a more delightful place is nowhere to be found. For natural attractiveness it surpasses even Taormina, Kandy and Nikko, the beauty-spots of Sicily, Ceylon, Japan. The abundant water was excellent, which could rarely be said of Mexican towns, and ice from Orizaba Mountain could be had _ to cool the abundant refreshments. The mercury never stood high and never low. Spring was almost the only season. The foliage always looked new and exuberant, and blossoms were constantly opening as if with ever fresh surprise.

From the plaza one gazed into a broad valley tapestried with many-hued verdure. Here palms, live-oaks, magnolias, tamarinds and aguacates — often enmeshed with beautiful and sometimes with aromatic vines — gracefully sheltered the azalea, the verbena, the poppy, the jasmine and countless varieties of geraniums and roses. Here such exquisite plants as the vanilla, heliotrope and tree-lily exhaled with unceasing generosity their delightful odors. Here, amid ancient forests, gorges curtained with exotic ferns and orchids extended to mysterious depths teeming with all manner of strange, fascinating growths. And when, after long surveying this Eden, or descending to wander far in its mazy paths, one's eye rose to a broad belt of pines and firs clothing jagged sierras, and at last, above their rich green, beheld a slender but enormous pyramid of snow, the peak of Orizaba, heaven-high and resplendent against the deep, tropical blue, it seemed as if nature had lavished on this chosen spot the whole diapason of her beauty. Music hath charms to soothe; and such loveliness, grace, perfume and grandeur, combined, were splendidly suited to still the passions of war.

Scott and the first American troops proved worthy of this paradise. Nobody was molested. The officers lodged only