To the north, directly in front of Tacubaya, on the Tacubaya road to the city and only one-half a mile distant by air, there was a huge mass of grey rock, connected with the city walls by two short roads. The rock mass was fortified from bottom to top by breastworks, and fringed at its base by a long wall and embankment. On the flat crown, about one hundred and fifty feet up, there was a great stone building—the Military College of Mexico. The rock fell away steeply on the south and the east sides. The engineers said that it was as steep on the north side. The west side had a more gradual slope, covered with cypress trees. The name of the rock was Chapultepec—or in English, Grasshopper Hill.
At the foot of the west slope—the timbered slope—there was a long group of stone buildings, with flat roofs and one or two towers. At night red flames seemed to issue from one of the roofs, as if the place was being used as a foundry, casting guns and solid shot. The place was called El Molino del Rey—the King’s Mill; and according to the people in Tacubaya, it was indeed an old mill and a foundry.
The western half of the group was the Casa-Mata, or Casemate. And this was reported to be a powder storehouse.
The King’s Mill and the Casa-Mata were located not only at the western foot of Chapultepec but also at the foot of the hill-slope of Tacubaya village. The guns of Chapultepec covered them; covered the Tacubaya road which at the base of the rock mass ran into the two short roads onward into the city—one entering the city at the southwest corner, the other farther north, on the west side; covered the main road east of Tacubaya—the Contreras road.
To silence Chapultepec—perhaps to climb to its top with only eight thousand men—looked like a job. The King’s Mill and the Casa-Mata at its base might have to be taken. The city gates were defended by batteries, and they, too, would have to be stormed.
Lieutenant Grant good-naturedly lent his spy-glass to Jerry; through it there might be seen the faces and costumes of the Mexican soldiers upon Chapultepec. The castle or college itself loomed menacing with cannon, and thick high walls and the Mexican coat of arms in colors over the wide portico. Numbers of boys were moving about in neat uniforms. These were the military cadets, being educated for Mexican army officers. Some did not appear more than fourteen years old.
Evidently they had practiced on Chapultepec hill, for as said, there was no end of ditches and breastworks, from the college buildings down to the last wide ditch and wall at the bottom.