tages on their side, and the character of the mountain country is such, as to make a successful campaign against them almost impossible. About sixty of the men of the battalion, wounded at Xochipulco, were there in the hospital under surgical treatment.
We made good use of our time while at Puebla, and in its vicinity. No part of our trip was more replete with interest, and we enjoyed it to the utmost. On the 19th we left Puebla, by railway, to visit the capital of the ancient Republic of Tlaxcala, renowned in the history of Spanish conquest for the part its people took in fixing the chain of the conquerors, upon the neck of Mexico. How the Mexicans, hearing of the arrival of Cortez at Vera Cruz, asked permission of their hereditary enemies, the Tlaxcalans, to be allowed to send commissioners through their territory, to see Cortez and find out what called him to the country; how the crafty Tlaxcalans consented, and then agreed to pilot them on their way, but secretly dispatched emissaries in advance to make a treaty with Cortez—which they did—and joined hands with the invaders against the Mexicans, whose costly presents to Cortez had excited his cupidity, and confirmed his determination to conquer their country, has all been told by historians, over and over, and I will therefore confine myself to what I saw and heard, on this old historic ground, in the last, bright, sunny days of the good year 1869.
From Puebla to the station of Santa Anna, by railway, is only twenty-one miles, English, and with a special train we made it in less than forty minutes; in Cortez' time it must have taken considerably longer. The old Indian town of Santa Anna, is half in ruins, but there is still a little life left there. We saw an immense en-
