Puebla, third city of Mexico, is even colder than the capital. The snow-clads of the latter look down upon it from the west, and far away to the east stands Orizaba, highest peak of Mexico. In the haze of sunset its great mantle of new-fallen snow stood out sharply, darker streaks that ran down through the lower reaches of snow dying out in nothingness, as the mountain did itself, for as a matter of fact the latter was not visible at all, but only the snow that covered its upper heights, surrounded above, below, and on all sides by the thin gray sky of evening. By night there was music in the plaza. But how can there be life and laughter where a half-dozen blankets are incapable of keeping the promenaders comfortable? In all the frigid town there was not a single fire, except in the little bricked holes full of charcoal over which the place does its cooking. Close to my hotel was the "Casa Serdan," its windows all broken and its stucco front riddled with bullet holes, for it was here that two brothers, barricading themselves against the government of Porfirio Diaz, spilled the first blood of the long series of revolutions and worse that has followed. Already the name of the street had been changed to "Calle de los Mártires de Noviembre, 1910."
It is nearly three hours' walk from the plaza of Puebla to that of Cholula, the Benares of the Aztecs, and for him who rises early it is a cold one. What little romance remains would have fled had I made the trip by mule-car. As it was, I could easily drop back mentally into the days of the Conquest, for under the brilliant cloudless sky as I surmounted a bit of height there lay all the historic scene before me--the vast dipping plain with the ancient pyramid of Cholula, topped now by a white church with towers and dome, standing boldly forth across it, and beyond, yet seeming so close one half expected an avalanche of their snows to come down upon the town, towering Popocatepetl and her sister, every little vale and hollow of the "saddle" between clear as at a yard distance. Then to the left, Malinche and the rolling stony hills of Tlaxcala, along which the Spaniards advanced, with the beautiful cone of Orizaba rising brilliant and clear nearly a hundred miles away. The great rampart separating them from the cherished valley must have brought bated breath even to the hardy soldiers of Cortez.