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 228 his companions to his protection, commenced his circuitous approach to the Mexican capital.

[A. D. 1519.] It was on the sixteenth of August that Cortez set out to leave the coast finally behind him. He had four hundred and fifteen Spanish infantry, sixteen horses, some Totonac troops, forty nobles of that province, and four hundred men of burden to carry the baggage and drag the artillery.

It was mentioned at the beginning of this book, that Mexico contained three well-defined zones of climate and vegetation, which one might pass through on his way from the coast to the great plateau where the Mexican capital was situated. Along the coast it is very hot, and the climate is tropical—this is the tierra caliente, or "hot country;" next, as you advance into the mountains, you enter the temperate country, the tierra templada, at an elevation above the sea of 3,000 to 4,000 feet; last, is the cold country—tierra fria—situated above an elevation of 7,000 feet. Through all these zones, with their varying types of vegetation and their changes of climate, the army of Cortez was to march on its way to the capital. With gladness, it may be presumed, they turned their backs upon the hot coast country, swarming with insects and stricken with fevers, and entered the hills that led up to the vine and forest-clad mountains of the tierra templada. On their second day's march they reached, Xalapa, a place where there exists to-day a town of the same name—Jalapa—celebrated for its green valleys and oak-crowmed hills. Beyond this region, still climbing, they entered the great plains, crossing some forbidding mountains, where the temperature was very cold, and the soldiers, and the Indians of the hot country—especially those of Cuba—