144 RUBBER PLANTING ON THE 



FOURTH LETTER. 



ACROSS THE ISTHMUS PLANTATION "SAN FRANCISCO" VIEW OF THE "UBERO" 

 AND "LA CROSSE" PLANTATIONS THE GREAT TEHUANTEPEC PLAIN AT THE EL 

 GLOBO ATTACKED BY A VAMPIRE THE Z.APOTACO WOMEN DOGS AND FLEAS 

 SALINA CRUZ BACK TO SANTA LUCRETIA MEXICAN JUSTICE SLEEPING UNDER 

 DIFFICULTIES A NIGHT AT A RAILROAD CAMP A TAPIR HUNT THE PERSISTENT 



"PlNOLEO" ACHOTAL AGAIN JOURNEYING NORTH CATTLE RANCHING TAXES 



CORDOBA AND ORIZABA MEXICO CITY A LOOK BACKWARD THE Cow PEA AND 

 VELVET BEAN. 



THE last letter of this series left us just boarding the train at Coat- 

 zacoalos for the journey across the Isthmus to the City of Tehuan- 

 tepec. The journey did not take the whole of the month that 

 has intervened, but it took long enough in all conscience, yet it was not 

 without interest. Almost at once I struck up an acquaintance with a 

 German, named De Verts, who, I soon learned, owned the plantation 

 San Francisco up in the Dos Rios region. His plantings were of 

 coffee and Castilloa, and of the latter he had some sixty thousand trees 

 two and one-half years old. These were planted seven and one-half 

 feet apart one way, and fifteen feet apart the other, with coffee between. 

 His trees averaged about eight inches in diameter. From his descrip- 

 tion the stand appeared to be an excellent one. 



After his departure a friend promised to point out to me a man, 

 who more than any other down that way, was making "easy money "- 

 none other than a traveling dentist who finds his patients only among 

 the natives. He goes from village to village doing a rushing business 

 at great profit. It is said that many who have no trouble at all with 

 their teeth have them filled in order to show the gold, and that they 

 never weary of grinning, with that end in view. I did not see the 

 dentist, for at this juncture we stopped at a station, where on a siding 

 was a private car, on the platform of which stood Sir S. Weetman Pear- 

 son, the famous English constructor of tropical railroads. We all wanted 

 a sight of him, and were rewarded by a brief view of a thick set, deter- 

 mined looking Britisher, who had an air of meaning business all the 

 time. He was said to be discharging men right and left, and generally 

 upsetting the policy of procrastination and inefficiency that had been 

 more or less characteristic of the management in the past. 



The National Tehuantepec Railroad is without doubt of great 



