AN ECONOMIC STUDY OF MEXICO. 731 



Mexico, is very heavy, although at an enormous reduction on the cost 

 of all methods previously employed. When the road was first opened, 

 the charges for first-class freight per ton were 87G ; second class, 

 $65 ; and by passenger-trains, $97.77. Since the opening of, and un- 

 der the influence of the competition of, the Mexican Central, these rates 

 have been reduced to an average of about $40 to $45 per ton, and still 

 the business is understood to be not especially remunerative. Begun 

 in 1857, this road was not completed, owing mainly to the disturbed 

 state of the country, until 1873. It was built under English super- 

 vision, and with English capital, at a cost, including equipment, of 

 $39,000,000, and is solid and excellent throughout. During the year 

 1876 the road was destroyed at different points by the revolutionists, 

 and all traffic for a considerable time suspended. 



At the station "Esperanza," one hundred and fifty miles from the 

 city of Mexico, on the farther side of a great sandy plain, and on the 

 very verge of the plateau, and where the descent may be said to 

 abruptly begin, the stations, engine-houses, and shops, built of dressed 

 stone, are as massive and elegant as any of the best suburban stations 

 on any of the British railways. And as illustrating how rigidly the 

 English engineers adhered to home rules and precedents, the con- 

 structions at this station include a very elegant and expensive arched 

 bridge of dressed stone, with easy and extended approaches, to guard 

 against danger in crossing the tracks ; although, apart from the per- 

 sons in the employ of the company, the resident population is very 

 inconsiderable. 



Stai'ting from this point in the early morning of the 27th of 

 March, to make the descent to the comparatively level and low land 

 intervening between the base of the plateau and the ocean, the ground 

 at the station was white with hoar-frost, while behind it, apparently 

 but a mile or two distant, and of not more than fifteen hundred to 

 two thousand feet in elevation, rose the glistening, snow-covered cone 

 of Orizaba. Within the cars, and even with closed windows, overcoats 

 and shawls were essential. Within an hour, however, overcoats and 

 shawls were discarded as uncomfortable. Within another hour the 

 inclination was to get rid of every superfluous garment, while before 

 noon the thermometers in the cars ranged from 90° to 95° Fahr., and 

 the traveler found himself in the heart of the tropics, amid palms, 

 orange-trees, coffee-plantations, fields of sugar-cane and bananas, almost 

 naked Indians, and their picturesque though miserable huts of cane or 

 stakes, plastered with mud and roofed with plantain-leaves or corn- 

 stalks. In the descent, Orizaba (17,373 feet), which at the starting- 

 point, and seen from an elevation of about 8,000 feet, is not impressive 

 in respect to height, although beautiful, gradually rises, and finally, 

 when seen from the level of the low or coast lands, becomes a most 

 magnificent spectacle, far superior to Popocatepetl, which is higher, 

 or any other Mexican mountain, but, in the opinion of the writer, in- 



