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or well paved, perfectly drained, and lighted by electric ight. 
most important, port of Mexico. The town is built on the level 
shore only four feet above the sea and contains little of botanical 
interest. The main plaza is well filled with large palms and other 
tropical plants and is the home of thousands of blackbirds, whose 
loud clamor continues without ceasing from daylight until dark. 
All efforts to dislodge these birds have proved unavailing. The 
buzzards, or zopilotes, avoid the plaza and make their home on 
the towers of the parochial church and nearby buildings. 
Early on the morning of December 11, we left Veracruz on the 
Interoceanic Railway, bound for Jalapa, situated in the mountains 
eighty miles distant and nearly a mile above sea-level. The grade 
is steep, the road is of narrow gauge, and there are many stops, 
so it was afternoon when we reached out destination. However, 
the journey is full of botanical interest and we found much to 
observe and enjoy. 
Just outside of Veracruz, there are large sand dunes contain- 
ing only cacti, but these are soon left behind and the road enters 
the low, tropical, highly productive zone, twenty-five miles in 
width, lying between the village of San Francisco and the coast. 
During the dry season, from October to May, this zone is not so 
attractive as in summer, but we saw cocoanuts, oranges, several 
fine palms, among them the coyol veal, which yields the palm-oil 
of commerce, banana patches, sugar plantations, and a number 
of common wild tropical plants, such as Ricinus, Bursera, Ficus, 
Ceiba, Agave, Tamarindus, and the like. Meadows where corn 
and beans had been gathered were overrun with a large orange- 
flowered Coreopsis, while the railway embankments were covered 
with a small pink-flowered Convolvulus. The rocky slopes often 
contained cacti. At La Antigua, after about an hour’s ride, we 
crossed a fine river of that name, flowing through rich meadows. 
Beyond the thatched cottages of San Francisco, the coffee zone 
begins, which extends to Jalapa. This zone also supplies bananas, 
pineapples, corn, and many other important products. In the 
woodlands, the “‘molatta tree” first attracted my attention because 
