ectually were they kept in order, that the Mexicans confessed that
it was a smaller evil to have the enemy's forces marching through the
country, than their own army.

An elaborate account of the American invasion is given in Mayer's
'Mexico.' To those who do not care for details of military operations,
there are still points of interest in the history. That ten thousand
Americans should have been able to get through the mountain-passes, and
to reach the capital at all, is an astonishing thing; and after that,
their successes in the valley of Mexico follow as a matter of course.
They could never have crossed the mountains but for a combination of
circumstances.

The inhabitants generally displayed the most entire indifference;
possibly preferring to sell their provisions to the Americans, instead
of being robbed of them by their own countrymen. Add to this, that the
Mexican officers showed themselves grossly ignorant of the art of war;
and that the soldiers, though they do not seem to have been deficient
in courage, were badly drilled and insubordinate. One would not have
wondered at the army being in such a condition---in a country that had
long been in a state of profound peace; but in Mexico a standing army
had been maintained for years, at a great expense, and continual civil
wars ought to have given people some ideas about soldiering. We may
judge, from the events of this war, that Mexico might be kept in good
order by a small number of American troops. The mere holding of the
country is not the greatest difficulty in the question of American
annexation.

One thing that struck our friends at Tisapan, among their experiences
of the war, was the number of dead bodies of women and children that
were found on the battle-fields. A crowd of women follow close in the
rear of a Mexican army; almost every soldier having some woman who
belongs to him, and who carries a heavy load of Indian corn and babies,
and cooks tortillas for her lord and master. The number of these poor
creatures who perished in the war was very great.

We spent much of our time at Tisapan in collecting plants, and
exploring the lava-field, and the canada, or ravine, that leads up into
the mountains that skirt the valley of Mexico. I recollect one
interesting spot we came to in riding through the pine-forest on the
northern slope of the mountains, where the course of a torrent, now
dry, ran along a mere narrow trench in the hard porphyritic rock, so