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of its large and beautiful flowers, which are white with a purple 
center. The trunk and branches, which were leafless at that 
season, are ashy-white. The tree is small, but exceedingly 
abundant. 
Rinconado, near the battlefield of Cerro Gordo, was passed at 
10 A. M., and, after traversing a broad plateau with a fine view, 
we came to Carrizal and then to Colorado, a region of black, 
fertile soil that produces great quantities of corn. Here are 
rough, low, limestone hills with valleys between, resembling the 
Cockpit Country of Jamaica. The rock-masses are much tilted 
and folded, and the scenery becomes rapidly wilder as the road 
winds about the successive hills and crosses the intervening 
barrancas filled with luxuriant vegetation. Palms, of various 
forms and sizes, are very conspicuous here, but beyond El 
Palmar they gradually give place to hardwood trees, on which 
an increasing number of bromeliads and orchids appear. A 
conspicuous orchid with rose-colored flowers was seen again 
and again. 
Between El Palmar and the broad plateau on which Chavar- 
rillo is situated, the underlying rock seems to change for the 
most part from limestone to granitic formations overlaid by vol- 
canic discharges. At the same time, oaks and cycads and 
bracken ferns appear, to the exclusion of palms and many other 
kinds of plants common at lower elevations. Beyond Chavar- 
rillo, the broad fertile plateau, covered with grass and dotted 
with clumps of scrubby oaks, pinguin, and opuntia, extends for 
many miles and supports great herds of cattle. In the midst of 
this plateau, the Mexican Fruit Company has recently planted 
extensive areas in oranges, pineapples, bananas, cherimoyers, and 
coffee. These are the first orchards of importance between Vera- 
cruz and Jalap 
Pacho, six miles from Jalapa, the plateau gives place to 
again, with coffee in abundance and splendid primeval 
dense crowd at the station and up the very long, narrow street 
leading to the principal part of the town. There were no 
