The stray troops of the enemy had forsaken the roads that surrounded the capital--as had also their guerilleros. But still the ways were not safe. Partisans had disappeared, to be succeeded by _salteadores_! From all sides came rumours of robbers--from Puebla on the east, Toluca on the west, Cuernavaca on the south, and the Llanos de Apam, that extend northward from the Valley of Tenochtitlan. Scarce passed a day without "novedades" of the bandits, and their devilish audacity: stage-coaches stopped; travellers commanded to lie flat along the earth, while their pockets were being turned inside out; and some stretched upon the ground never more to stand in an erect attitude! An escort of our dragoons could have prevented this--that is, upon any particular occasion. But to have sent an escort with every traveller, who had need to go forth out of the capital, would have required a score of squadrons of well-appointed cavalry. At the time we chanced to be short in this arm; and the distribution of our troops to Cuernavaca and Toluca, the strong force necessary to garrison Puebla--and the numerous detachments required to accompany the commissariat trains, left no cavalry disposable for eccentric service. Till we should receive from Uncle Sam a reinforcement of dragoons, the robbers must be allowed to stop travellers and capture stage-coaches at discretion. This was the condition of things, six months after the _second conquest_ of Mexico. I, for one, did not like it. It was but a Christian instinct to hate robbers, wherever found; but in the town of Puebla I had imbibed for this class of mankind a peculiar antipathy. Experience and suspicion both formed its basis. I remembered Captain Carrasco, and I could not help remembering _Captain Moreno_! A young artist who had accompanied our army throughout the campaign--and whose life-like pictures were the admiration of all who looked upon them--had been imprudent enough to risk travelling by _diligencia_ from Mexico to La Puebla. It was not his destiny to arrive at the City of the Angels--on earth; though it is to be hoped he has reached the abode of truer angels in heaven! He was murdered among the mountains of the _mal pais_--between the "venta" of Rio Frio and that of Cordova. I had formed a strong attachment to this unfortunate youth. He had oft partaken of the hospitality of my tent; and, in return I suppose for such slight acts of kindness, in his great picture of the storming of Chapultepec, he had fixed my face upon the canvas, foremost--far foremost--of those who on that day dared to look over the well-defended walls. The consciousness of having performed the feat did not render me less sensible of the kindness of its being recorded. I, a homeless, nameless, adventurer, with no one to sing my praise--save those who had witnessed my deeds--could not feel otherwise than grateful. He saw, and sang them; in that verse in which he was a master--the poetry of the pencil.