MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA. 



CHAPTER I. 



MEXICO. 



F we glance over Mexico, we shall see that the 

 country is, like the continent of which it forms a 

 part, of a triangular shape, — the eastern portion 

 bounded by the Gulf of Mexico, low and flat sandy deserts 

 or noxious marshes being spread over it, and with a narrow 

 belt of level land at the base of the mountains on the Pacific 

 shore. A series of terraces broken by ravines form the sides 

 of a vast table-land, — six thousand feet above the plain, — 

 which stretches from north to south throuorhout the interior, 

 separated here and there by rocky ridges into smaller 

 plateaux ; while vast mountains in several parts rise from 

 their midst — that of Popocatepetl, the highest in Mexico, 

 reaching to a height of 17,884 feet, with Orizaba, almost of 

 equal elevation, and several mountains not much inferior to 

 them, their snowy summits seen from afar, through the clear 



