e ascending
steel lines of the railroad spiral has brought him, to where distant
fertile vales lie in the glimmering haze, thousands of feet below. And
then the scene changes, and the dark rocky ribs and bleak plateau show
that the summit is reached, ten thousand feet above the level of the
ocean's ebb and flow.

[Illustration: THE LAND OF THE CONQUEST: STATE OF VERA CRUZ; VIEW ON
THE MEXICAN RAILWAY; THE TOWN OF MALTRATA IS SEEN THOUSANDS OF FEET
BELOW.]

But what we shall have accomplished in a day the weary _Conquistadores_
have spent many marches in overcoming. Cortes and his men are halting
at the end of a broad valley. What is the cause of the delay? An
extraordinary fortification confronts them; a wall, twice as high as a
man, made of stone blocks, and of enormous thickness, absolutely closes
the passage of the valley, and extends for several miles on either hand
to where it abuts upon the rocky ramparts of the Sierra itself. Was
this some enchanted castle raised up by magician hand? Certainly not;
it was the outer defence of the land of the Tlascalans; the bulwark of
the brave and independent mountain republic, which had ever defied the
power of the Aztecs.

To reach this point the Spaniards had toiled on day after day, sleeping
at night upon their arms. From the tropical lands and climate of the
_tierra caliente_ they had reached the frowning fastnesses of the great
mountains and lofty peaks, which overhang the crest of the eastern
slope of the tableland of Mexico. The rainy season was upon them, and
the trails were wet and heavy, and the atmosphere and humour of the
tropic lands had been debilitating, as indeed they are to the European
of today. The brusque change of climate from heat to cold tried them
sorely, although the latter was the more invigorating. Day by day a
huge coffin-shaped mountain had overhung the horizon--the Cofre de
Perote, an extinct volcano, in whose vicinity the desolating action of
old lava-flows startles the traveller's eye. As they reached the summit
of the range--the crests of the Eastern Sierra Madre--the rain and snow
and bitter winds, the functions of Nature which she ever lets loose
upon the head of the traveller who defies her in such inclement
regions, assailed the Spaniards, and some of the unfortunate Indians,
natives of the tropic lands of the coast, succumbed to the cold. On, on
they toiled up this untrodden way--untrodden, that is, by the foot of
civilised man before t