104 MEXICO, CENTRAL AMEEICA, WEST INDIES. 



from tlie sea, tlie coast route having had to be constructed at some distance from 

 the Gulf in consequence of the fringing backwaters. Matamoros is of recent origin, 

 its site down to the beginning of the present century being still occupied by the 

 hamlet of Coiigregacion del Refugio, that is, the " Refuge " of all the French and 

 Mexican corsairs scouring the surrounding waters. In 1825, at the time of ils 

 ofiBcial foundation, it received its present name from one of the heroes of the 

 Mexican M'ar of independence. Soon after the annexation of Texas to the United 

 States, Matamoros acquired great strdtegic and commercial importance as a frontier 

 station near the coast. Its outlet near the mouth of the Hio Bravo has received 

 the ambitious name of Bagdad, which, however, is scarcely justified by this humble 

 coast village. The bar is too high and too dangerous to admit large vessels. 



Beyond Matamoros, North Tamaulipas is almost uninhabited. Nothing is 

 anywhere to be seen except a few scattered hamlets and vast haciendas, where 

 thousands of horses and cattle are reared. But in the centre of the state a con- 

 siderable population is grouped in towns and villages, which owe their existence 

 to the streams descending from the Sierra Madre. This part alone of Tamaulipas, 

 that is, " Olive-land," justifies its name. Here is Aguayo, capital of the state^ 

 now called Ciudad Victoria. It lies on a main branch of the Santander, or Marina, 

 famous in Mexican history as the old Bio de las Palmas, where the fleets of Garay 

 and Camargo landed at the time of the conquest. Here also the ex-emperor 

 Iturbide attempted to re-enter the country for the purpose of again seizing the 

 reins of government ; but having been arrested he was brought to the village of 

 Padilla, at that time the capital, and shot by order of the Tamaulipas congress. 



The city of Tula, which lies near the frontier of the State of San Luis Potosi 

 and on the plateau at an altitude of 4,100 feet, is an agricultural centre, whence 

 large supplies of maize, beans and pimento are forwarded to the lowlands. 

 Although founded in the middle of the seventeenth century, Tula of Tamaulipas, 

 like the Tula of Hidalgo, has replaced an ancient city where have been discovered 

 the vestiges of temples and numerous vases, weapons, implements, and other 

 objects of the pre-Columbian age. 



The route leading from Tula to Tampico, after crossing a pass 4,800 feet high, 

 descends to Santa Barbara, beyond which it rounds the base of the Cerro Bernai, 

 a nearly isolated mountain of a perfectly conic shape. Tampico occupies in the 

 south of Tamaulipas a geographical position somewhat analogous to that of 

 Matamoros ; it stands on a river not far from its mouth, and is surrounded by 

 extensive low-lying and unproductive plains. The present city dates from 

 the year 1823, when the Spaniards still held the fortress of San Juan d'Ulua, 

 which commands Vera Cruz, and which consequently obliged Mexico to seek 

 new outlets for its foreign trade. The old town lies within the State of Vera 

 Cruz on a thick bank of upheaved shells, and on a shallow creek accessible only 

 to craft of light draft. Another Tampico occupies the site of an old Huaxtec 

 village amid the dunes east of the Tamiahua lagoon. The new town, though 

 better situated on the chief river a short distance below its confluence with the 

 Tamesi and six miles from the sea, is not accessible to large vessels; those drawing 



