ior.
The coach in which the journey to Mexico is made is placed on a
railroad track and pushed on before a crazy locomotive, while behind
the engine is a long line of freight wagons. At every cow-path that
crossed our track stood a flagman waving his little red flag to the
train as it passed, apparently in burlesque imitation of a regular
road.

THE NATIONAL BRIDGE.

The famous National Bridge carries the National Road over the river
Antigua, at the mouth of which, a little way below, Cortez built his
Vera Cruz (Villa Rica de Vera Cruz), and where he caused his vessels to
be sunk before commencing his expedition to the interior. Little has
ever been known in our country of that magnificent whole, of which this
and other bridges of solid masonry are but parts. The National Road of
Mexico was conceived and executed by a company of merchants known as
the Consulado of Vera Cruz. It is about ninety miles in length, and
cost $3,000,000. From Vera Cruz it runs northward, often within sight
of the Gulf, till it nearly reaches the Cerro Gordo, where it turns
inland, and passing upward through that celebrated gorge to Jalapa, a
distance of sixty miles from Vera Cruz, and at an elevation of 4264
feet above the sea; thence, for the remaining thirty miles, it is
carried over the famous mountain, Perote, to the great table-land of
Mexico. It is a work of extraordinary character for the period in which
it was built, and the method of its construction; and reminds the
traveler of a Roman road of antiquity, though no Roman road ever passed
over a mountain 10,000 feet in height. The ruin into which it has
fallen in many places during the last thirty years of civil war, serves
to keep up the illusion, though it falls far short of those ancient
roads in the material of which it is constructed, being of small rough
stones, covered over with a durable cement.

[Illustration: THE NATIONAL BRIDGE.]

The system of stage-coaches between Vera Cruz and Mexico is as nearly
perfect as any system of traveling dependent on weather can be.
Comfortable hotels are established at convenient distances along the
road; and if the passenger desires it, he can have endorsed upon his
ticket a permission to tarry upon the road as long as he may desire.
Six, and sometimes eight horses drag the coach along at a hazardous
speed. Twice, out of three times that I have passed over this road, I
have been overturned. Once, while riding on the top, a heavy iron ax