CITY OF ORIZABA, 67 



Very few wheeled vehicles are used, the freight being 

 carried almost wholly on the backs of burros and natives. 

 All the produce of the neighboring country, such as vege- 

 tables, charcoal, wood, etc., comes in on the backs of 

 natives, men and women, and it is really astonishing to see 

 what heavy loads they will carry for miles over the moun- 

 tains, at the rate of five or six miles an hour. These natives 

 enjoy wonderful physical health, owing probably to their 

 simple life. They are subject to hardly any deformity, and 

 a hunchbacked native is not to be seen, while it is very 

 rare to meet a maimed or a lame one. Their simple mode 

 of life, living in the open air, and their temperate habits, 

 have earned for them immunity from deformity. What a 

 lesson for our more advanced civilization ! The simple 

 native seldom indulges in pulque, and when he does the 

 effect is far less harmful than our American whisky. 



The small plaza is a delightful resort, a perfect wilder- 

 ness of green with an ornamental fountain in the middle, 

 about which are stone seats. The entire surrt)undings of 

 Orizaba are garden-like, and the vegetation, owing to the 

 humidity of the atmosphere rising from the Gulf, is always 

 of a vivid green. If we walked through the plaza early in 

 the morning, we would be sure to see many native men and 

 women coming into market from the country, all bending 

 under their weight of provisions, pottery, or some other 

 home product. The women knit as they walk along. 

 Long trains of burros loaded with grain, straw, wood, and 

 alfalfa, are also seen coming in from some hacienda in the 

 valley. The milkmen, too, are seen, with their milk cans, 

 two on each side, suspended from their horses saddles. 



It will be remembered that at the little town of Jala- 

 pilla, situated a couple of miles from town, Maximilian held 

 the famous council which decided his fate. Had he taken 

 heed to his own common sense, and the advice of his 



