Page:Vagabond life in Mexico.djvu/316



Vera Cruz.—Bocca del Rio.

place where Vera Cruz now stands is not that on which Cortez first disembarked. It was not till the end of the sixteenth century that Count de Monterey, the viceroy, laid the foundations of the present city. Destined to become the key to New Spain, Vera Cruz was built by the conquerors with all the splendor which they usually lavished on their under takings. The houses were made large and spacious, and the streets crossed each other at right angles, to allow the fresh sea-breezes to circulate freely, and to temper the intense heat of the atmosphere. Still faithful to that antipathy to trees, which seems a distinctive trait in their hygienic principles, the Spaniards chose, as a site for the first maritime city in Mexico, a vast sandy plain, enlivened by scarcely a spot of verdure, and not even containing a single spring of water. Even before it was first visited by the yellow fever, a situation so unfavorable gave to Vera Cruz a melancholy appearance, which it has preserved to this day. The town, though scarcely all built upon, nevertheless quickly attained a very high degree of prosperity. It was from its ill-sheltered roadstead that those rich galleons sailed which conveyed to Europe a mass of wealth far surpassing the much-vaunted treasures of Potosi.