it seemed, on a background of mountains of the purest azure, was enough of itself to engross the admiration of a looker-on, had there not been presented, hard by, a scene still more singular and romantic. A train of warriors, artificers and labourers, the latter bending under such burthens as had never before descended to the verge of Tezcuco, was seen passing, at a little distance, towards the city, into which, as was denoted by a sudden explosion of artillery and the blast of trumpets on the top of the pyramid, the leaders were just entering, while the rear of the procession, extending for miles, and winding like some mighty snake, over hill and meadow, was lost among distant forests. The martial salutation from the town was answered by the whole train with a yell, filling the air, and causing the distant hills and lakes to tremble with the reverberation. In this, the ear might detect, besides the war-cry of Indians, "Tlascala, Tlascala!" the not less piercing shouts of Spaniards, "In the name of God and Santiago!" as well as the flourish of bugles, scattered at intervals among the train. If the broad Sea of Anahuac trembled at the sound, it was with good reason; for the clamour of triumph indicated the approach of those unknown naval engines, which were to plough its undefiled bosom, and convert every billow into the vassal of the stranger. On the shoulders of eight thousand Tlascalans, were borne the materials for the construction of thirteen brigantines, with which the unconquerable Spaniard, capable of every expedient, meditated the complete investment and the certain reduction of Tenochtitlan. The iron, the sails, and cordage of that fleet which he had caused to be broken up and sunk in the harbour of Vera Cruz, were added to planks, spars, and timbers from the sierras of Tlascala, and to pitch and rosin from the _pinales_, or pine-forests, of Huexotzinco,--a gloomy and broken desert, notorious, in the present day, as the haunt of bandits, the most brutal and merciless in the world.