Page:History of the War between the United States and Mexico.djvu/392

mountains on the west incline nearer to the city, is "the royal hill of Chapultepec,"^[1] — once washed by the waters of Lake Tezcuco — in ancient times the favorite retreat of the mild Montezuma and his royal ancestors. At a later day it was crowned with the splendid palace of the Viceroy Galvez — subsequently converted into a military school and fortification. The main structure and terre-plein, covering about four hundred square yards, and provided with heavy armaments, occupied the summit of a rocky acclivity, one hundred and fifty feet above the adjacent meadows, near the east end of an oblong inclosure, surrounded by a stone wall ten feet high, four hundred yards broad, from north to south, and nine hundred yards in length, from east to west. On the rising ground, beyond a gentle slope inclining towards the west from the base of the acclivity, and adorned with a magnificent grove of cypress trees, twelve hundred yards distant from Chapultepec, was El Molino del Rey, "the Mill of the King," a long range of stone buildings, with towers at the end, originally, as the name implies, used as a mill; but when the Americans entered the valley, it was occupied by the Mexican troops. From four to five hundred yards further to the west, upon a ridge, and nearly on a line with the northern face of El Molino del Rey, was Casa de Mata, an old square building, with thick stone walls, surrounded by ditches and bastioned intrenchments, erected for a fort, but afterwards occupied as a dwelling. Ditches, batteries, redans, and breastworks, varying in form and extent, were constructed in and about this group of fortifications.^[2]

1. The Hill of Grasshoppers.
2. There were seven batteries at Chapultepec, mounting 19 guns, and seven infantry breastworks.