are its capture by Iturbide, August 2, 1821; its
occupation by Scott, May 25, 1847; its successful defense against the
French, May 5, 1862; its capture by the French, May 17, 1863; and its
capture _from_ the French, April 2, 1867, by General Diaz, now President
of the republic.

We were told that the thieving populace of Puebla had so provoked the
agent of the company who own the road between Mexico and Vera Cruz, by
abstracting everything they could lay their hands on, whether available
for any purpose of their own or not, that he finally resolved to set a
trap which should teach them a severe lesson. A small dynamite bomb with
its brass screw at the vent was left exposed in the yard at night. One
of the prowling, thieving peons climbed the wall and attempted to
abstract the cap,--not because he was in want of a brass cap to a
dynamite bomb; he would have stolen a railroad spike or an iron tie all
the same. He hadn't fooled with this instrument more than sixty seconds
before it was discharged in his hands with a report like a cannon. The
consequence was, that not enough of that would-be thief could be found
to give the body Christian burial! It was observed thereafter that peons
didn't feel sufficient interest in the company's affairs to climb the
wall which incloses the depot, and meddle with the articles of railroad
property lying about the yard. This was a pretty severe dose of
medicine, but it wrought a radical cure.

CHAPTER XIV.

Ancient Cholula.--A Grand Antiquity.--The Cheops of Mexico.--Traditions
relating to the Pyramid.--The Toltecs.--Cholula of To-Day.--
Comprehensive View.--A Modern Tower of Babel.--Multiplicity of Ruins.
--Cortez's Exaggerations.--Sacrifices of Human Beings.--The Hateful
Inquisition.--A Wholesale Murderous Scheme.--Unreliable Historians.
--Spanish Falsification.--Interesting Churches.--Off the Track.--
Personal Relics of Cortez.--Torturing a Victim.--Aztec Antiquities.
--Tlaxcala.--Church of San Francisco.--Peon Dwellings.--Cortez and
the Tlaxcalans.

In leaving Puebla for Cholula, which lies at a distance of only a couple
of leagues to the westward, we first pass on the left the fine
architectural group formed by the church of San Javior and Guadalupe,
with its attractive cluster of domes, spires, and pinnacles. Our course
lies through broad maguey fields and across the Atoyac River, a shallow
stream most of the year; but at times it becomes a