Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 2.djvu/78



XXIV

PUEBLA

to take advantage of the Mexican panic, Scott hurried Worth's division after the fugitives. Down the steep hill on which Jalapa lies poured the men in blue, passing the little plaza and the quaint cathedral; and then without halt, leaving the city of flowers and its groves of liquidambar, they set out on a long, gradual ascent. What a march they now had! "The most beautiful country there is," commented an officer; and his remark was truer than he knew. Dominated by the splendid snowy peak of Orizaba, there spread a vast expanse of hills and gorges, mountains and valleys, here studded with white villages, there gemmed with a silver cascade, yonder brightened with fresh fields of corn and grain, always variegated with the shadows of lazy clouds, and everywhere softly receding into a deeper and still deeper blue; and as the column wound in and out through the clear, cool and fragrant atmosphere, every turn revealed new beauties or displayed once more the beauties already seen—only a little nearer each time, or a little more remote.

Gradually the ascent grew sharper and the air cooler, and about a dozen miles from Jalapa Worth came to the Black Pass—the "terrible pass," wrote Scott—of La Hoya, where for more than a mile the troops were squeezed between two steep mountains, cleared to afford artillery a fair sweep, and partly fortified; but the seven or eight guns lay on the ground spiked, and not an enemy could be seen. Then after making a sharp twist they kept on winding and ascending for about six miles till they reached the log houses of Las Vigas, much like those of Russia and Sweden. Vegetation was luxuriant still; but the trees on the steep hills at the left were evergreens, and the flowers that brightened the overtowering walls, buttresses and