heated shores of the Gulf of Mexico to mountains whose tops are covered with snow, within the short space of four-and-twenty hours.
Vera Cruz in itself, affords but insufficient harbourage to vessels; nevertheless its port is the most used of any belonging to the republic. It is more like some point in a channel where it is just possible for ships to remain on emergency than a well-appointed harbour; and the anchorage is insecure and uncertain. Northern winds (los nortes) frequently expend their violence upon it for days; driving the vessels ashore and damaging the protecting mole of the port. The place is well fortified. The Island of Sacrificios beside which foreign ships of war anchor, is three miles away, and they can only pass through a very narrow channel commanded by the guns of the fort. The point of land opposite the mole of Vera Cruz (between which projections merchant ships only can anchor, the passage being not more than seven hundred yards wide) is the island of St. Juan de Ulloa, and it is almost entirely taken up by a huge fortress. The Spaniards formerly considered this fortification impregnable, and although a portion of it was blown up by the French in 1839, it still
