Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/276

268 such an humiliating reminder of defeat to stand on the border of their chief city. It would have been more generous in our people to have omitted the names of the victories, content to have a simple monument over our brave soldiers; for we need no reminder of that buried past, now that our former foe is marching with us hand in hand to an assured future of prosperity. The cemetery lies just clear of the suburbs, and where the level fertile fields commence. When I was there the freshest grave was that of Colonel Greenwood, who had been assassinated a few months previously, while surveying the line of the National Railroad: flowers were yet fresh upon it.

About a mile from the stone bridge here is the tree we are looking for; it is a charming walk,—or it was that day in April when I first made my pilgrimage,—through fields green with alfalfa and bordered with trees and magueys, and before you are aware of fatigue, after turning a sharp bend in the road, the famous tree rises before you;—a grand old cypress, that would attract our attention were it not surrounded with that halo of history. Its swelling trunk is said to be sixty feet around, though its jagged limbs, blasted by many a storm and worn with age, do not reach far above the little chapel that squats beside it. This chapel was erected in memory of that night of dreadful battle, when the Spaniards, driven like sheep before the hordes of Aztecs, perished as never before in the New World, trodden under foot, with their backs to the enemy. La noche triste they called that awful night of black despair,—"the sorrowful night,"—and this aged cypress, that still stands in defiance of the assaults of time, el arbol de la noche triste, the tree of the sorrowful night. Here, in this village of Popotla, Cortés sat down upon a stone, and wept at the loss of his soldiers;—beneath this tree, it is affirmed by some,—at all events, near this spot. Alluding to this circumstance, an ancient writer sings dolefully:—

"In Tacuba was Cortés, with many a gallant chief; He thought upon his losses, and bowed his head with grief."

The town of Tacuba is about a quarter of a mile farther, and not a great distance beyond is Atzcapotzalco, once the seat