CHAPTER II 



COAST AND TABLELAND 



'ITH all our alertness and despite much 

 peering tliroiigli glasses on Christmas 

 morning to catch the first glimpse of the 

 low Mexican coast, we found ourselves 

 most profoundly deceived and tricked by Mother Na- 

 ture. No horizon was ever more closely scanned than 

 was that in the path of our steamer, but when a dark 

 and ominous-looking cloud slowly rose ahead, we were 

 fain to give up the attempt, supposing that the 

 approaching storm concealed everything beneath it. 

 Idly watching the dark clouds as they gained in size 

 and distinctness, the truth suddenly flashed upon me, 

 and if ever my eyes beheld a miracle it was in the 

 fraction of a second in which the rising banks of storm 

 clouds changed to a grand range of lofty mountains, 

 apparently rising abruptly out of the sea. But the end 

 of the miracle was not yet. Surely those fleecy white 

 thunder-caps which edged the apex of the supposed 

 storm and so enhanced the resemblance — these at least 

 must be what they seemed. I strained and strained 

 through the glasses, and, satisfied on this point, was 

 about to lower them, when the scales again were lifted 

 from my eyes, and the magnificent peak of Orizaba, 



0^ 14 ^ 



