42 Oeoarapbical fRotes on fl&ejico, 



The mild nature and evenness of most of our climate is very favor- 

 able to certain diseases especially pulmonary ones and when that 

 advantage becomes well known the central plateau of Mexico will be 

 the best sanitarium for lung diseases, and especially for tuberculosis. 

 Other lung diseases requiring a warmer climate could find desirable 

 places in certain valleys in the temperate zone like Cuantla, Cuerna- 

 vaca, Tasco, Iguala, and others. These very conditions, namely, the 

 even and mild climate both in summer and winter, will make it a coun- 

 try visited by thousands of pleasure or health seekers who wish to 

 escape both extremes of the northern climate. Even now we would 

 have a much larger travel from this country if we had convenient ac- 

 commodations for travellers, but our hotels are not yet as comfortable 

 as those in the United States. 



FLORA. 



The short and imperfect description of the climate of Mexico, 

 made above, will show that we can raise all the products of the 

 three different zones into which the earth is divided, and the most re- 

 markable thing is that we can raise them almost on the same ground. 

 By going only a few miles, for instance, travelling on horseback four 

 or five hours from a low to a higher locality, we change from the torrid 

 to the temperate zone, and therefore we can have the products of both 

 with comparatively little trouble ; and by going four or five hours 

 higher still, we change from the temperate to the frigid zone, and these 

 are advantages of our geographical position which can be appreciated 

 only by those who have experienced them. 1 



! Mr. Charles Dudley Warner, editor of Harpers Monthly Magazine, in a 

 brilliant article published in the July, 1897, number of that periodical, gives the follow- 

 ing description of the rapid descent from the cold to the temperate and hot regions of 

 Mexico, which may be considered as a specimen of the scenery in many other 

 localities of that country. In many other places, where there are no wagon-roads, 

 but only a footpath, the descent is a great deal more rapid, often 5000 feet in 

 four or five miles, and then the contrast is still greater. At Maltrata for instance, an 

 Indian town about 5000 feet above the level of the sea, the natives offer their tropical 

 fruits to the passengers of the Mexican Railway going from Veracruz to the City of 

 Mexico, and they leave with what they have left after the train starts to climb the 

 mountains to the Central Plateau to an altitude of about 9000 feet, and they reach 

 Esperanza, the first station on the Central Plateau far ahead of the train, which has to 

 describe a long, zigzag course before getting there. I have selected the following ex- 

 tract from Mr. Warner's article because it relates to one of the historical places of 

 Mexico : 



"Cuernavaca is distinguished as the actual meeting-place of the pine and the 

 palm. It lies only a little more than fifty miles south of the City of Mexico ; but in 

 order to reach it there is a mountain to be crossed which is at an elevation of over ten 

 thousand feet. A railway climbs up this mountain, over the summit, to a wind-swept 

 plain, in the midst of pine forests, called Tres Marias marked by the sightly peaks 

 of the Three Marys. By long loops and zigzags it is crawling down the mountain on 



