heir favorite retreat; and the Aztec eagle
floated again upon the standard that waved over Chapultepec; but it was
only the galvanized corpse of that brave bird, and the emperor was only
a victim prepared for the sacrifice. Since that time much bad gunpowder
has been burned over the heads of the trees, and the roots have been
shaken by the discharge of the cannon of the castle at every change of
rulers, as one ephemeral government succeeded another, but these
cypresses still remain unharmed, and may outlive many other dynasties.

CHAPULTEPEC AND MOLINA DEL REY.

The Americans captured Chapultepec by a _coup de main_. Having made
several breaches through the stone wall behind the cypresses, they
rushed through under those trees and up the side of the hill next to
them, not allowing themselves to be delayed by the turnings of the
road. The general in command, the late General Bravo, was a man of
tried courage, and not deficient in military sagacity. He sent most
urgent requests to Santa Anna for reinforcements, urging that General
Scott was too prudent a soldier to attack the city before carrying the
castle, and that the garrison was inadequate for its defense. But Santa
Anna was completely paralyzed, as Scott designed he should be, by the
large force, under General Smith, which was threatening the south front
of the city. When it was too late, Santa Anna discovered that this was
only a feint.

[Illustration: CHAPULTEPEC.]

The King's Mill (_Molina del Rey_) is an old powder-mill, standing
on elevated ground in the rear of Chapultepec. It has nothing about it
to give it notoriety except the slaughter of the American troops that
here took place from a masked battery, manned by a body of volunteers
from the work-shops of the city. The whole affair was a military
mistake. Its capture was not necessary to insure the capture of
Chapultepec, for, as soon as that fortress, which commanded the mill,
should be in our power, the mill would be untenable. But repeated
successes had made the American officers imprudent, so that without
first battering down its walls, the division of General Worth rushed
up, regardless of a flank fire of the castle, to carry this old
building by assault. After the sacrifice of about 700 lives, cannon
were brought out and the breach made, and then the difficulty was at an
end.

A mile or so by the road leading south and west from Chapultepec is
Tacubaya, where are the suburban residences of th