Justin H. Smith - The Mexican-American War (Vol. 1&2)

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

The niceties of the matter would be out of place here, but a few general rules may prove helpful.

A as in English “ah”; e , at the end of a syllable, like a in “fame,” otherwise like e in “let”; i like i in “machine”; o , at the end of a syllable, like o in “go,” otherwise somewhat like o in “lot”; u like u in “rude” (but, unless marked with two dots, silent between g or q and e or i ); y like ee in “feet.”

C like k (but, before e and i, like C th in “thin”); ch as in “child”; g as in “go” (but, before e and i , like a harsh h ); h silent; j like a harsh h ; ll like D lli in “million”; ñ like ni in “onion”; qu like k ; r is sounded with a vibration (trill) of the tip of the tongue ( rr a longer and more forcible sound of the same kind); s as in “sun”; x like x in “box” (but, in “México” and a few other names, like Spanish j ); z like C th in “thin.”

Words bearing no mark of accentuation are stressed on the last syllable if they end in any consonant except n or s , but on the syllable next to the last if they end in n , s or a vowel.

Table of Contents

Mexico, an immense cornucopia, hangs upon the Tropic of Cancer and opens toward the north pole. The distance across its mouth is about the same as that between Boston and Omaha, and the line of its western coast would probably reach from New York to Salt Lake City. Nearly twenty states like Ohio could be laid down within its limits, and in 1845 it included also New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, California and portions of Colorado and Wyoming.1

On its eastern side the ground rises almost imperceptibly from the Gulf of Mexico for a distance varying from ten to one hundred miles, and ascends then into hills that soon become lofty ranges, while on the western coast series of cordilleras tower close to the ocean. Between the two mountain systems lies a plateau varying in height from 4000 to 8000 feet, so level—we are told—that one could drive, except where deep gullies make trouble, from the capital of Montezuma to Santa Fe, New Mexico. The country is thus divided into three climatic zones, in one or another of which, it has been said, every plant may be found that grows between the pole and the equator.1 E