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That is its northern boundary. This wall separates it from the estate of Santa Anna. In fact it is surrounded by a continuous and substantial stone-wall, sufficient to keep in cattle. This spot of land sufficiently large for a county, with a soil the richest in the world, and a climate like that of Jalapa, is given up to be a range for thousands of cattle."

A day's journey above it, lies the limit of eternal snow, upon the peak of Orizaba; a day's journey below it is Vera Cruz, the city of the yellow fever, surrounded by burning sands and poisonous exhalations, in a district where, during the hot months now commencing, the thermometer scarcely ever descends below 80°, day or night. Jalapa hardly knows summer or winter, heat or cold.

Similar instructions were issued to Major-General Scott on the 3d of April, 1847, who replied from Jalapa on the 20th of May, 1847, that if it be expected "that the Army is to support itself by forced contributions levied upon the country we may ruin and exasperate the inhabitants and starve ourselves." The same discretion was given to him that had been to General Taylor in this respect.

Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was born in Jalapa, in 1795, and entered the army at an early age. With Iturbide he joined in the revolution and came out a brigadier-general, and was made commandant of Vera Cruz. A few years later he organised a revolt and overthrew the man he had aided, and in 1828 he deposed Pedraza and put Guerrero in his place.

There, is a good deal of trading in horses done at Jalapa, where travellers coming down from Mexico sell their beasts, which are disposed of at great prices to other travellers coming up from the coast. Between here and Vera Cruz, people prefer travelling in the Diligence, or in some covered carriage, to exposing themselves to the sun in the hot and pestilential region of the coast.

He was put into a palm-leaf basket, which held him all but the tip of his long taper tail, which, like the rest of his body, was covered with rings of armour fitting beautifully into one another. One of our men carried him thus in his arms to Jalapa.

The leading division ran against the enemy at Cerro Gordo, some fifty miles west, on the road to Jalapa, and went into camp at Plan del Rio, about three miles from the fortifications. General Patterson reached Plan del Rio with his division soon after Twiggs arrived. The two were then secure against an attack from Santa Anna, who commanded the Mexican forces.

Jalapa early became an important position to which foreign goods were brought to be exchanged for silver and gold, jalap, sarsaparilla, vanilla, spice of Tobasco, cocoa, cochineal, and woods of various colors. It is the beauty of the place itself, and the unsurpassed magnificence of its mountain-scenery, that throws such a charm around Jalapa.

A thousand years have passed away their history has perished forever. The old books say that the delicate little scarlet insect, cochineal, was once a product of this district, and Jalapa was its proper market, and the mart of all the other peculiar productions of the neighboring region, because it was the town on the high land nearest to the sea-port.

He at once commenced his preparations for the capture of the position held by Santa Anna and of the troops holding it. Cerro Gordo is one of the higher spurs of the mountains some twelve to fifteen miles east of Jalapa, and Santa Anna had selected this point as the easiest to defend against an invading army.