Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 2.djvu/64

46 going three miles along the beach they struck off at a right angie for six or eight on a deep, sandy road, sometimes three or four feet below the level of the ground, with a blazing sun overhead, not a breath of moving air, and Twiggs's horse for a pace-maker. Many threw away everything detachable, and the greater part of the division—at least four fifths, it was said—fell by the way. Some died, and many others did not rejoin the command for days. Unbroken mules and drivers ignorant of their business added to the difficulties. The meagre facilities for transportation did not permit even officers to have tents, and some of the scanty supplies were lost through the breaking down of wagons.

The next day, happily, a change took place. The column set out before sunrise, marched more slowly, and halted occasionally; and the national highway, no longer buried in sand, proved to be a spacious, comfortably graded cement avenue, carried over the streams by handsome bridges of cut stone, and flanked on both sides by the estates of Santa Anna. Now it penetrated a dark forest of palms, cactus, limes and countless other trees festooned with vines, and now it crossed rolling prairies. Here it was cut through solid rock; here it skirted a beautiful hill, with a charming vista of leafy glades; and presently it was clinging as if in terror to the face of a cliff. Bowers carpeted with many soft hues and perfumed with heliotrope recalled ideas of Eden, while marshes full of strange bloated growths, bluish-green pools rimmed with flowers of a suspicious brilliancy, and thick clumps of dagger plants tipped with crimson offered suggestions of a different sort.

Matted tangles of leafage spattered with gold, big tulipans gleaming in the shadows like a red rose in the hair of a Spanish dancer, blossoms like scarlet hornets that almost flew at one's eyes, and blooms like red-hot hair-brushes, the sight of which made the scalp tingle, were balanced with big, close masses of white throats and purple mouths, and with banks of the greenish-white [sic]cuatismilla, discharging invisible clouds of a fragrance that seemed to be locust blended with lily of the valley. Trees with tops like balloons, like corkscrews and like tables, trees drained almost dry by starry parasites that swung from their branches, trees covered with strawberry blossoms—or what appeared to be strawberry blossoms —