Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 2.djvu/37

Rh tottered coquettishly in pink slippers, was charming. The curtained balconies gave one a hint now and then of ladies making their toilets and smoking their cigarettes just within; and the flat roofs, equipped with observatories commanding the sea, were delightful resorts in the cool of the day. Along the water front extended a massive wall, supplemented at the northern end with Fort Concepción, at the southern end with Fort Santiago — both of them solidly built — and, between the two, with a mole of granite some two hundred yards in length. Landward the defences were feeble, for it had long been assumed that any serious attack would be made by water; but there were nine well-constructed, though in most cases not large, bastions, and between them dilapidated curtains of stone, brick and cement about fifteen feet high and two and a half or three feet thick.

Behind the town extended a plain rather more than half a mile wide; and beyond that rose hills of light sand — enlarged editions of the dunes that ran along the shore north and south of Vera Cruz — which gradually increased in height until some of them, two or three miles inland, reached an elevation of perhaps three hundred feet. Then came dense forests, cut here and there by a road and occasionally diversified with oases of cultivated land, richly scented by tropical fruits and flowers. To the southwest of the city lay a series of ponds and marshes, drained by a small stream that passed near the wall; and this creek, supplemented by cisterns and an underground aqueduct, provided the town with water. In the opposite direction, on a reef named the Gallega — distant nearly three quarters of a mile from Fort Concepción — rose the fortress of Ulúa, built of soft coral stone, faced with granite, in the most scientific manner, and large enough to accommodate 2500 men. Water batteries lay wherever it seemed possible to effect a landing, and tremendous walls, enfeebled by no casemates, towered to a height of about sixty feet.

At the beginning of March, 1846, Mora y Villamil, the highest engineer officer in the Mexican army and at this time comandante general of Vera Cruz, feared that on account of Slidell's | departure the Americans might suddenly attack him. Aided by Lieutenant Colonel Manuel Robles, a skilful and active subordinate, he drew up detailed plans for repairing the crumbling