Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 2.djvu/246

228 brusque and rowdyish, and to the polite Mexicans they appeared even more so than they really were. They loved to present themselves at a show with trousers tucked into their boots, drape their legs over the backs of the seats, and yell for American patriotic airs; and they seemed to be always eating except when busy with a glass.

Gambling became a rage, and in its temples were other priestesses besides those of Chance. Of La Bella Unión, the chief resort, 1t was said, What is unknown "is as well as what is known." Eager for popularity and advancement many officers would not interfere, and in fact some of them sank almost as low as their men. One consequence of such dissipation was illness, and another was robberies, quarrels and fights. The arrival of reinforcements — fresh volunteers and recruits — quickened all riotous tendencies. So far as personal morals went the conditions of Santa Fe were approached by not a few, and to crown all two volunteer officers, involved in what seems to have been a gambling-house fracas, were convicted of murder. Conqueror as well as conquered must pay his penalty.

Most, however, shrank from such a life, and many tried to render the American stay a fine experience for themselves and for others. It was not in vain. Their nobler tastes found congenial soil. The turquoise sky, the pictured façades of the houses, the handsome gray old palaces curiously and lavishly sculptured, and embellished with precious tiles in blue and white, the Alameda with its grand trees and its fountain, the amazing richness of the churches and their wondrous gilded carvings, the embroidered gold vestments of the priests, the perfume here and there of an ancient garden stealing out through a broken wall, the red conflagration of sunrise behind snowy mountains, the distant, mellow clang of a convent bell as evening shadows gathered, the brilliant round moon turning the peaks into gigantic veiled watchmen and setting massive domes and spires a-quiver with a mystical sort of life — these things helped introduce our finer spirits to the heart of the land, and fill them with sympathy and good-will. Mexico has never been without strangers to love her, and she found such among her conquerors.

Here our survey of the ground ends, but a few vertical