^Location, Boundaries, anfc Brea. ^ 



the Pacific and the Atlantic, respectively, and its widest end toward 

 the north, or the United States. I look forward to the time, which I 

 do not think far distant, considering our continuity of territory to the 

 United States and our immense elements of wealth, when we shall be 

 able to provide the United States with most of the tropical products, 

 such as sugar, coffee, tobacco, india-rubber, etc., 1 which they now im- 

 port from several other countries. 



The widest portion of Mexico is, therefore, its northern extremity, 

 or its boundary with the United States. The narrowest point is the 

 Isthmus of Tehuantepec, about one hundred miles from one ocean to 

 the other ; and after passing it the country expands again to the south- 

 east towards Yucatan and Chiapas until it reaches the boundary with 

 Guatemala and Belize. 



Yucatan resembles but little in its configuration Mexico proper, as 

 it is a level country formed by coral reefs and beds, and whose ruins 

 show it to have been the seat of a high civilization and an advanced 

 people. 



Although the greater part of Mexico is on the North American con- 

 tinent proper, as the Isthmus of Panama divides North from South 

 America, a large portion of it lies in Central America. Geographically 

 speaking, Central America is the portion of North America embraced 

 between the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and Panama, and of this vast 

 territory Mexico holds about one-third. In a paper published in the 

 Bulletin of the American Geographical Society of New York, of March 

 31, 1894, I dealt especially with this subject. 2 



The broken surface of Mexico formerly made travelling there very 

 difficult, for which reason the country was but little known, even by 

 Mexicans themselves, as its configuration did not allow of the building 

 of good roads, and to travel any considerable distance it was necessary 

 to go by mule paths, without comfortable inns, and running great risks,, 

 owing to the disturbed condition of the country. It required, there- 

 fore, time, expense, endurance, and an object in view to travel widely 

 there. I was always desirous of knowing as much as possible of the 

 country, and I have made long trips, many of them on horseback, 

 solely for the purpose of studying certain regions, and I think that 

 before the railway era, I was perhaps one of the Mexicans who knew 



1 In his Notes on Mexico, Lempriere, a distinguished traveller and historian, says : 

 " The merciful hand of Providence has bestowed on the Mexicans a magnificent land, 

 abounding in resources of all kinds a land where none ought to be poor, and where 

 misery ought to be unknown a land whose products and riches of every kind are 

 abundant and as varied as they are rich. It is a country endowed to profusion with 

 every gift that man can desire or envy ; all the metals from gold to lead ; every sort 

 of climate, from perpetual snow to tropical heat, and of inconceivable fertility." 



2 A copy of that paper is appended to this article. 



