Page:Vol 5 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/489

Rh Scott had naturally expected to meet with opposition in crossing the range into the valley of Mexico, for here a very effective resistance could have been made with a small force; and he was not a little elated as he saw further evidence of the enemy's neglect. The route followed was along the less elevated Rio Frio, north of the hoary-headed sentinels, Iztaccihuatl and Popocatepetl, at whose feet was verdure bright with flowers of a never-ending sunmer. With emotions not unlike to those that stirred the first intruding Spaniards three centuries before, the soldiers yielded themselves to the entrancing view from the summit of the pass. The contrast with the bleak ridges around lent to it the glamour of a terrestrial paradise, and, with senses quickened in the aroma-laden air, their eyes lingered on the winding lakes with azure skies reflected, on undulating fields and meadows bright with blossoms, on villages nestling in gleaming whiteness midst shady groves, and beyond on the checkered domes and fretted turrets of the foremost capital upon the continent.

With far different feelings the Mexicans beheld the advance in its tortuous march along the slopes of volcanoes, extinct or slumbering within, but girdled without by a death-bearing cestus, marked by a broken gleam of bayonets, by the white-covered wagons and fluttering pennons. Many a patriot's heart beat high with indignation at the sight of the invaders, while others felt a creeping fear akin to that of the spectators of yore at the winding march of pagan processions round the temple pyramids, from whose summits were to rise the agony shrieks of human victims and the fumes of blood.

With his usual evanescent energy Santa Anna had bestirred himself to meet the threatening danger, by