enjoyment of their newly-acquired liberty. The contest was one of several days' continuance: when at last it was terminated by a capitulation, all Mexico rang with rejoicing; and Santa Anna, then not thirty-five years of age, received the military rank which he now holds--General of Division. [8] Breva Resena Historica, p. 280. [9] See King's Proclamation, printed at Havana, 6th September, 1831. [10] See note 1. CHAPTER VII. In the Stage and out of the Stage.--Still climbing.--A moment's View of all the Kingdoms of the World.--Again in obscurity.--The Maguey, or Century Plant.--The many uses of the Maguey.--The intoxicating juice of the Maguey.--Pulque.--Immense Consumption of Pulque.--City of Perote.--Castle of San Carlos de Perote.--Starlight upon the Table-land.--Tequisquita.--"The Bad Land."--A very old Beggar.--Arrive at Puebla. The time allotted for my visit to Jalapa had come to a close. I took out the ticket, endorsed _Escala donde le convengo_, which I translated--"Let him stop when, where, and as long as he pleases," and once more took my seat in the stage, which, on a fine afternoon, was starting for Perote upon the table-land. This short journey lay across the mountain of Perote, passing over an elevation of 10,400 feet, the highest elevation that a stage-coach has yet reached, and one from which the traveler can oftentimes enjoy a view of all the vegetable "kingdoms of the world in a moment of time." I took my seat upon the top of the coach, above the driver, that I might enjoy a last lingering look at this Nature's paradise, before the mountain-ridge should intervene between the world I had left behind, and the great salt desert that we were soon to traverse. The prospect from the coach-top, as we traveled onward, was even more beautiful than that I have already described. For several miles beyond Jalapa we were descending and passing through one of those valleys of which the Spanish poets so often sing, where the roadside is covered with a profusion of the flowers and vegetation that flourish only in the most luxuriant soil. The valley was soon passed, and we began to ascend so rapidly, that before an hour had passed we could mark the changing vegetation, and observe the products of a colder climate; for this changing vegetation is a barometer, which, in Mexico, marks the ascent and descent as regularly as the most nicely-adjusted artificial instrument. So accurately are the stratas of vegetation adjusted to the stratas of the atmosphere which they inhabit, as to lead the traveler to imagine that a gardener's hand had laid out the different fields which here rise one above another upon the side of the mountain that constitutes the eastern inclosure of the table-land. The fertility of the soil did not seem to diminish; it was only the character of the vegetation that changed step by step, as we wound our way up toward the summit of the Perote. MOUNTAIN VIEW.