The famous National Bridge carries the National Road over the river Antigua, at the mouth of which, a little way below, Cortez built his Vera Cruz (Villa Rica de Vera Cruz), and where he caused his vessels to be sunk before commencing his expedition to the interior. Little has ever been known in our country of that magnificent whole, of which this and other bridges of solid masonry are but parts. The National Road of Mexico was conceived and executed by a company of merchants known as the Consulado of Vera Cruz. It is about ninety miles in length, and cost $3,000,000. From Vera Cruz it runs northward, often within sight of the Gulf, till it nearly reaches the Cerro Gordo, where it turns inland, and passing upward through that celebrated gorge to Jalapa, a distance of sixty miles from Vera Cruz, and at an elevation of 4264 feet above the sea; thence, for the remaining thirty miles, it is carried over the famous mountain, Perote, to the great table-land of Mexico. It is a work of extraordinary character for the period in which it was built, and the method of its construction; and reminds the traveler of a Roman road of antiquity, though no Roman road ever passed over a mountain 10,000 feet in height. The ruin into which it has fallen in many places during the last thirty years of civil war, serves to keep up the illusion, though it falls far short of those ancient roads in the material of which it is constructed, being of small rough stones, covered over with a durable cement. [Illustration: THE NATIONAL BRIDGE.] The system of stage-coaches between Vera Cruz and Mexico is as nearly perfect as any system of traveling dependent on weather can be. Comfortable hotels are established at convenient distances along the road; and if the passenger desires it, he can have endorsed upon his ticket a permission to tarry upon the road as long as he may desire. Six, and sometimes eight horses drag the coach along at a hazardous speed. Twice, out of three times that I have passed over this road, I have been overturned. Once, while riding on the top, a heavy iron axle broke like a pipe-stem, throwing me off upon the rough stones, with the additional misfortune of having a heavy Frenchman fall upon me. But no bones were broken, and I still live to tell the story.