University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
THE LANDING AT VERA CRUZ.

—Texan MSS.

Above, the sky of night, that dome of deep
and tranquil blue, shining with the gleam of
the stars. Beneath, the town of Vera Cruz,
its roofs and towers, rising indistinctly in the
gloom, with the Grand Plaza, right before us,
encircled by noble structures, and the sandy
shore, stretching as far as eye can see, to the
norte and south, in dreary barrenness.

Yonder, to the north-east, above the waves,
glooms the castle of San Juan de Ulloa; a
dark pile, rising sullenly into night, with the
Mexican flag, waving from its loftiest tower.
Toward the east the waves break in low murmurs
against the barren isle of Sacrificios, barren
to the sight, yet bearing in its bosom mysterious
chambers, stored with relics of six
hundred years ago.

Beyond the Castle and the Fort spreads the
illimitable waste of the trackless gulf, a world
of waves, reaching out into the vague night
until it kisses the world of sky.

Landward we gaze: beyond the waste of
sand and the dark line of forest and hill, a
colossal mass, white as snow, towers serenely
into the western sky.

That white mass, rising in its lone magnificence
from the distant horizon, its sublime
summit rushing proudly into heaven, is the
Peak of Orizaba; the altar of this glorious
temple which has the waste of sand and forest
and the sweep of the vast ocean, for its floor,
the sky for its dome, the stars of God for its
sacrificial lights.

It is one of those scenes which glide into
the soul and fill it with a sublimity that has no
speech. No word escapes our lips, no sudden
ejaculation give vent to our awe. Here we
gaze, the ocean is before us, the gloomy castle
rising from its waves,—there, and Orizaba
glares like the ghost of past ages from the
western sky.

For a moment we turn our gaze, from the
ocean and the mount, to the city that sleeps
before us, that home of plague, nestling on
the low and sandy shore, called Vera Cruz.

The mansion, on whose roof we stand, lies
east of the Plaza. Yonder, to the west, with
its front to the eastern sky, towers the Cathedral,
a noble structure, whose dome and cross
are lost to view in a vague mass of blackness.
What means this blackness that seems to undulate,
like a cloud as we gaze upon it? That
dome is black with vultures—look! Upon
the cross, rising high in the serene air, crouches
the sentinel of the band; an omen of death
and blood, nestling upon the emblem of Jesus
and Peace!

He will have a brave feast ere many days,
that gory vulture, resting to-night on the highest
Cross of Vera Cruz.

There, on the south of the square, rises another
church, or mass of churches, swarming
with buzzards, black even to the cross, with
those birds of death.

Ere a month has passed, those churches
will be blasted into ruins; the bodies of the
dead will darken their altars; the vulture pick
his ghastly meal even in their most holy
places.

Before us, on the east of the square, we behold
the National Palace, surmounted by the
tri-colored flag of Mexico.

And from this Plaza, shadowed in deep
night, by those noble forms of architectural
grandeur, extend the smooth-pebbled streets
of Vera Cruz, overhung with balconied windows,
gay with many-colored awnings, and
rendered uniform by a wide extent of level
roofs.

It is is indeed a beautiful town. Far out
on the sea—like a gleam from Italy or Asia,
—the voyager beholds it, with its towers and
cupolas, rising from the waste of sand; while
far above smiles the serene Orizaba. In the
calm evening hour when the white peak blushes
in the sun, and the smile of the dying day is
upon wave, castle and shore, these balconies
are crowded with beautiful women whose
white fingers gleam through the intervals of
flowers, while their gracefully gathered mantle
cannot altogether hide the glance of their
dark eyes, the red warmth of their lips, the
the passionate heaving of their veiled bosoms.

And yet from this town, so sublime with
its distant Orizaba, so beautiful with its warm
southern women, its tropical flowers, so grand
with tower and dome, the Plague every year
hurls two thousand people to their graves.
One third of its houses are ravaged every
year by that pestilence, which wings its dead-liest
dart where the verdure is freshest, the
sky most serene, the flowers most beautiful.

To-night another, a deadlier plague threatens
Vera Cruz.

What mean these batteries erected everywhere
about the city, hemming its houses in
a wall of latent flame? Wherever you gaze,
not an inch of ground beyond the walls of
the town but is commanded by some deadly
engine of war. To the North, you behold
Fort Conception, to the left Fort Santiago,
one mile from the city, with a belt of water
between, San Juan De Ulloa all formidable
with cannon, all prepared for the hurricane
of hattle.

What foreign enemy will dare assail the
impregnable castle, the city of the Gulf, defended
by a wall of steel, by the invisible barrier
of the Plague?

Hark! There is a strange sound to the
south—that waste of sand is black with shadowy
forms—the tread of ten thousand men
fills the air with a sound like the first moaning
of a thunder storm.

Gaze upon the channel which glides between
the castle and the Isle of Sacrificios.

Even as the light breeze crisps the waters
into tiny ripples, we behold glooming through
the night the dark forms of ships of war,
some white with sails, some sending the
smoke of their steam-engines into the starlit
sky. The night is dark, we may not trace
distinctly the shapes of these vessels, nor
count their cannon, nor estimate the awful
power of their death machinery, but they are
there, gently undulating upon the smooth waters,
their decks black with warriors, the banner
of the stars waving over all, as if to flash
back unto heaven the smile of the cloudless
sky.

What means the banner of the stars floating
over the Gulf of Mexico?

Look! There are barges upon the waters,
gliding as noiselessly as any gondola of Venice,
that bears the lover to his mistress's smile,
gliding from the ships to the shore, and bearing
armed men to the plague-smitten shore
of Vera Cruz.

Does not the scene rivet your gaze—fill
your heart.

You see those boats extended in the form
of a crescent, approach the sands, while the
water breaks in foam around their prows—
the bayonets twinkle like fireffies through the
darkness, a vague murmur stealing over the

waves, swells along the shore like the hushed
whispers of ten thousand men!

They come on, those death-boats, bearing
many a true heart to the hideous grave of the
pestilence, they grate upon the pebbly beach,
there is a flag waving through the gloom, and
the forms of armed men start into view far
along that drear, that barren shore.

Where is now the thunder of San Juan de
Ulloa? Look!—that slight elevation of sand
commands the shore, a single cannon planted
there would hurl a thousand men back into
the waves, and redden with blood the ripples
as they gurgled over these mangled `falls'?

Is there not one true-hearted Mexican,
only one, to place the cannon and fling the
lighted match to his fatal work? Not one?

For there is a doom upon the land, the hardy
children of the North are here, the soldiers
of the new crusade throng the waters
and the shore, at least twelve thousand strong,
and there is not one Mexican to meet them
on the beach with the warm welcome of a
warrior's steel.

At sunset you should have beheld the scene,
for if it is impressive now, at sunset it was
most beautiful!

It was a calm afternoon, on the ninth of
March, 1847. The glow of sunset was upon
the waveless waters of the Mexican Gulf,
upon the city of Vera Cruz, with its roofs
and towers, centred on the sandy shore, upon
the dark castle, glowing to the north, and
those beams so vivid in their tropical glare
hung in a baptism of life around the far-off
Peak of Orizbaa.

There, in that sweet, sad calm of the
evening breeze, which makes the stranger
in a foreign land dream of home, a strange
sight was seen by the light of the setting
sun.

The roofs of Vera Cruz were black with
people. The soldier sprung to the battlement
and held his breath as he gazed. From
yonder castle the gay group of Mexican
generals looked forth upon the tranquil wa
ters. Every eye was centred upon the channel,
between the castle and sacrificios, and
every heart beat quicker at the splendid panorama,
warmed by the sunset rays.

For the huge Princeton came gliding over
the waves, urged swiftly on by her tremendous
machinery, with the smoke curling over
her masts, and melting into the serene gold
of the upper sky. The dark form, the white
sails of the other vessels, swept black and
glittering in the centre. She seemed, that
fearful Princeton, renowned for the bloody
tragedy once enacted on her decks, like the
head of a huge serpent trailing its sinuous
way over the calm waters.

As the fleet approached the Isle of Sacrificios,
the armed men crowded on the decks,
their weapons flashing in back the glare of
the sun, cast their gaze to the west, and saw
the desolate shore spreading wide and dreary
as the waves broke over its sands. The city
crowded on its every roof with the men, the
women, the mothers and daughters of Vera
Cruz are there—the vessels of other nations
anchored in the harbor, their masts alive with
silent spectators, and in the distance Orizaba
seemed to woo them on. Orizaba, that soon
would see them hurled by hundreds into the
plague-pit, or crushed in bloody heaps upon
the battle field!

In the shrouds of the steamer Massachusetts,
at this moment of intense expectation,
stands a man of some sixty years, his form
unbent from its stern majesty by the toil of
battle or the frost of age, clad in a costume
magnificent in its severe simplicity. Blue,
relieved by gold,—a broad chest heaves beneath
that uniform, a kingly form supports
that warrior head. His brow was bared: you
could see the gray hairs curling round it; the
sunset glow upon those firm features, every
line glowing with a warrior soul.

Over his head, and around him, throwing
his expressive form distinctly into view,
waves in slow undulations the banner of the
stars.

His eye brightening as it expands, roves
over the scene, and he remembers that bloody
field fought years ago, within the thunder of
Niarara, and looks forward with a quickening
pulse to these words, which history will soon
write in characters of light—`Winfield
Scott, in the footsteps of Cortes!'

With twelve thousand men, their lives,
their honor, hanging on his fiat, this man of
Niagara sees the American army approach
the land of Mexico

Hark!—the thunder of a signal cannon
breaks the silence, a volume of blue cloud
sweeps over the form of Scott.

That is the signal gun!

And parting from the vessels' sides, as they
swing at anchor near the Isle, a line of barges,
crowded with soldiers, sweep toward the shore.
It is a beautiful thing to see them come
spread forth in the form of a crescent, which
flings the glitter of four thousand bayonets
over the waves.

On towards the sands—nearer and nearer
—in sight of the city and the fort, the object
of the gaze of thousands, these veterans of
Monterey, these men of Louisiana and Kentucy,
approach the hostile shore.

That form, standing erect in the foremost
barge, with the light playing upon the muscular
chest; the uniform of blue glittering with
gold, the deep eye, gleaming beneath the
waving plumes, as white as snow?

Over all he towers; the American Flag
grasped in one hand, the unsheathed sword
flashing in the other. Behind him, the fleet;
before him, the shore; far above, the white
altar, Orizaba.

Look upon that banner and read in its
blood-stained folds the single word, `Monterey!'
Gaze upon that waving plume; it
gleamed like a beacon through the three days
fight of the Mountain City; it waves above
the brow of Worth, whose eye flashes again
as he prepares to spring from the barge, and
plant the banner upon the sands of Mexico.

Silence reign, only broken by the sweep of
the oars; now hearts are beating impetuously
beneath their warrior covering; the setting
sun shines over compressed lips and woven
brows. A moment of fearful suspense!

Nearer to the shore glides the toremost
barge.

You see Worth lift at once his sword and
banner; with one hurried glance he surveys
the hostile beach—the city five miles distant,
the harbor white with sails; and then casting
his face, so chivalric in its ripe manhood, to
the glow of the setting sun, he springs upon
the shore.

In silence he plants the banner staff upon
the sands and uncovers his brow.

Ten thousand eyes behold the picture.

That solitary soldier, standing alone upon
the beach, the waves curling at his feet, the
Banner of the Continent waving over his head.
The golden sands relieve his form, the evening
breeze lifts the banner into light.

Then, and not till then, the ominous silence
is broken by a thunder shout. It is the heart-warm
cheer of our thousand brave men. Look
upon them as they come! With one impulse
they plunge into the waves and dash onward,
lifting their glittering arms into the light,—
they cannot wait until the barges grate the
sand, but springing into the water, mid-breast
deep, they hurry forward, and encircle with
a guard of hearts and steel, the noble form of
Worth.

The last gleam of the setting sun disclosed
that barren shore, clouded by the firm array
of six thousand men, with the gloomy outlines
of cannon and mortar, seen disitnctly
even amid the flash of these long belts of dazzling
steel.

Darkness gathers on the ocean and the
shore; one by one the prominent points of
the picture went out in the gloom. First, the
shore faded; and the soldiers, in their beautiful
array, became a vague mass of moving
blackness, their presence known by their
thunder tread alone. The domes of the city

glittered for a moment and then were dark;
the huge castle sank into the bosom of night
the ocean reached forth its waves and melted
through the dusky air into the distant horizon.

And when the shadow was upon the ocean
and the shore, like a mantle of tangible darkness,
still, in the west, Orizaba lifted its white
altar into heaven, and while all was black below,
the last rays of the departing day hung
round its glossy pinnacle like a smile from
God.

Now it is dark night, illumined only by the
stars. While the American legions are hurrying
from the battle ships to the shore, and
extending in silent and terrible arry around
the slumbering city, our souls are hurried by
the stern emotions of the hour, back into the
bosom of the Dead Ages.

Three hundred years ago, and the same
lone Orizaba, that towers serenely now,
flashing its calm scorn upon the petty broils
of man, smiling calmly on, whether he
marches to battle in glittering array, or sinks
disfigured and horrible, into the loathsome pit
of the plague—that same Grizaba beheld a
far different scene.

Then, the great woods sent forth their arms
of foliage and flowers even to the ocean shore.
The palm grew near the waters, a straight
column, towering into upper air, with a coronal
of broad leaves and luscious fruit around
its brow. The cypress, too, that stern monarch
of dead centuries, rose here, with all
manner of rainbow flowers, blooming round
its massive trunk, and vines of various beauty
hanging about its branches. Then, the desert
sand, where San Juan de Ulloa glooms, was a
fair green isle. Sacrificios yonder, was the
Temple Isle of a strange and mysterious religion.
Upon its sands, among the gay glory
of the tropical vegetation, the horrible altars
rose, dripping with the warm blood of the human
sacrifice. Beneath its surface were
chambers reared in the barbarous yet im
pressive architecture of the people, whose
name has for thousands of years been lost to
human lips.

Wonderful chambers were those, hidden
beneath the sand, gloomy with images of the
devil, God; and burrowing far into the caverns
beneath the ocean waves.

Then, it is of the time, three hundred years
ago we speak: a wondrous people dwelt in
this land, amid gorgeous cities, or in the silence
of the beautiful vallies, their dusky
faces, glowing with the same passions that fill
our bosoms now, the fury of war, the avaricious
lust of traffic, the magnetic tenderness
of love.

Yes, beside this shore many a great lord,
clad in garments that were woven with feathers
of rainbow dyes, and dazzling with ornaments
of solid gold, strode proudly along,
followed by the innumerable column of his
half-naked and dusky warriors. Yes, beneath
yonder cypress, in those days that are now
almost forgotten, crouched the dark-cheeked
but impetuous daughter of the South, looking
with her large deep eyes upon the brown
child that slept upon her bosom. Yes, upon
yonder isle the chaunt of prayer was heard,
the altar smoke arose, the yell of the victim—
forced to the altar, his heart torn from his
living body—shrieked in horrible cadence
upon the still air, and died far along upon
the waves.

The ruler of this land dwelt in a valley,
some hundred of miles to the west, in a tranquil
valley of blossoms, whose gardens and
lakes were guarded by volcanic mountains.

At once the High Priest of the awful religion
and the Emperor of the people, he was
called the `Sad Warrior,' or in the Aztec
language, Montezuma.

Wherefore called the Sad or Doomed Warrior?
It is a strange story, and I will speak
it in few words.

The religion of this vast people, which
raised its altars in every city, and sent its

sacrificial flames into the sky, from every
mountain, comprised the worship of two deities.
Like all the religions, or rather forms of religion in the world, it adored two gods,—a
God of Blood, a God of Peace.

The God of Blood, in some lands, demanded
the offerings of an lnquisition, pledged to
do the works of hell on earth, on the victims
of persesution, slain without mercy on the
battle fields of bigotry.

In Mexico, this God of Blood demanded
merely the palpitating heart of a solitary victim,
who was stretched upon the altar stone,
amid the gaze of thousands, and torn to death
with his livid brow crowned with blossoms.—
This victim was slain on stated occasions of
solemn ceremonial, not in the gloomy hall of
an inquisition's dungeon, nor in the Molock-sacrifice
of a Genevan stake.

In all lands of the world, the God of Peace
received the worship of the purest hearts.—
The brutal man, swayed by the bigot's lust,
into hellish frenzy, loved Him not. But his
name was written in serene skies, in waveless
lakes, in all that was tender and beautiful
in the world, as much in the bared beauty of
a stainless woman's bosom as in the lone majesty
of the mountain top, smiling in the last
gleam of an unclouded sun.

After ages of darkness, this God was clearly
written in the Bible—He shone an image
of Time joined to Eternity, in the serene
Jesus.

In the land of Mexico, three hundred years
ago, this God—only revealed to the Aztec
people in the language of external nature, or
the voiceless eloquence of the heart—was
seen in the blossoms, in the cloudless skies,
in all the tenderness and sanctity that whispers
in the syllable Home.

It their traditions, which called him Quet-zalcoatt,
it was taught that he had lived in
the Mexican land, some thousand years before;
that He had been banished, in his
golden reign of peace, and driven from this
very shore by the God of Blood.

But a glorious hope lived in their traditions
that he would return and bless the land again,
nnd reign the Messiah of the Heart.

In this hope lived Montezuma; but priest
and king as he was, of a despotic government
and a barbarous religion, the hope soon became
to him a nightmare fear; he looked for
the return of the good God with trembling,
and saw the coming of the blessed age, with
the terror of self-convicted guilt.

He was doomed to destruction from his
birth, by Prophecy, and the coming of the
blessed Quet-zalcoatt was to ripen his doom
into judgement. Therefore, from his birth,
he was called Montezuma, or the Doomed
Man.

Did the Messiah come?

Yes, but not the God Peace, nor the apostle
of the God of Peace, but a stern Messiah,
whose crucifix was the hilt of his sword,
whose black banner bore a red csoss, with
the words,—`In this sign we conquer.'

A single picture from the life of this Messiah
of Blood.