Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/275

Rh idea of victory for the Indian or of defeat, of the rapacity of the conquerors or the translation of the Aztec to realms of supernal bliss, has never been satisfactorily explained. Near this church, tradition has it, was the ditch which Alvarado leaped, on that night of general disaster, the Noche Triste. Commander of the rear guard, he was one of the few who escaped, and claimed to have owed his life to a leap across one of the canals, from which the bridge had been removed, in the causeway leading to Tacuba. But Bernal Diaz, writing fifty years after the events of that night, says that the aperture was too wide and the sides too high for him to have leaped, let him have been ever so active. "As to that fatal bridge, which is called the 'Leap of Alvarado,' I say that no soldier thought of looking whether he leaped much or little, for we had enough to do to save our own lives."

We are on the way now to the "tree of Noche Triste" but there are so many objects of antiquity connected with the early history of the city that we cannot avoid frequent halts. The aqueduct of San Cosme, which ends in a sculptured fountain, is beyond the portion of the street known as Buena Vista, where there are some fine houses and gardens of wealthy citizens, and a little farther is the gate stormed by the Americans when they charged down the line of the aqueduct upon the city. Just where the giant water-way turns abruptly westward and stretches out towards Chapultepec is a spot no loyal American should fail to visit,—the cemetery set apart for the burial of foreigners. It is called the American cemetery, though more Germans are buried there than countrymen of ours, and adjoining it is the English portion, both densely shaded, both neatly kept, and fragrant with the flowers planted here in profusion. At the west end, towards Chapultepec, is a monument, a granite shaft with marble dies, on one of which is inscribed, "To the memory of the American soldiers who perished in this valley in 1847, whose bones, collected by their country's order, are here buried"; and on the other, "Contreras, Churubusco, Molino del Rey, Chapultepec, Mexico." It occurred to me that the Mexicans must be a forgiving people, that they allow