guns should be attached to the waggon-limbers instead of to
their own. Permission was given, and in a few moments his section was
thundering past the cliffs of Chapultepec. Coming into action within
close range of the flying Mexicans, every shot told on their
demoralised masses; but before the San Cosme Gate the enemy made a
last effort to avert defeat. Fresh troops were brought up to man the
outworks; the houses and gardens which lined the road were filled
with skirmishers; from the high parapets of the flat house-tops a
hail of bullets struck the head of the pursuing column; and again and
again the American infantry, without cover and with little space for
movement, recoiled from the attack.

The situation of the invading army, despite the brilliant victory of
Chapultepec, was not yet free from peril. The greater part of the
Mexican forces was still intact. The city contained 180,000
inhabitants, and General Scott's battalions had dwindled to the
strength of a small division. In the various battles before the
capital nearly 3000 officers and men had fallen, and the soldiers who
encompassed the walls of the great metropolis were spent with
fighting.* (* 862 officers and men fell at Chapultepec. Scott's
Memoirs.) One spark of the stubborn courage which bore Cortez and his
paladins through the hosts of Montezuma might have made of that
stately city a second Saragossa. It was eminently defensible. The
churches, the convents, the public buildings, constructed with that
solidity which is peculiarly Spanish, formed each of them a fortress.
The broad streets, crossing each other at right angles, rendered
concentration at any threatened point an easy matter, and beyond the
walls were broad ditches and a deep canal.

Nor was the strength of the city the greatest of Scott's
difficulties. Vera Cruz, his base of operations, was two hundred and
sixty miles distant; Puebla, his nearest supply-depot, eighty miles.
He had abandoned his communications. His army was dependent for food
on a hostile population. In moving round Lake Chalco, and attacking
the city from the south, he had burned his boats. A siege or an
investment were alike impossible. A short march would place the
enemy's army across his line of retreat, and nothing would have been
easier for the Mexicans than to block the road where it passes
between the sierras and the lake. Guerillas were already hovering in
the hills; one single repulse before the gates of the capital