140 



MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA, WEST INDIES. 



Villa Juarez, from the most distinguislied of its citizens, the Juarez who main- 

 tained Mexican independence against Maximilian. In the eastern part of Oaxaca 

 the chief town is Tehuantppec, or "Tiger Mountain," an old city of the Huabi 

 people, which was founded at an epoch previous to the Zapotec occupation of the 

 land. It is the only place in the district deserving the name of " town," and it 

 is so completely divided into separate quarters by mounds and ridges that it has 

 rather the aspect of a group of villages. In the vicinity are some magnificent 

 palm and orange groves, and gardens yielding choice fruits. 



While proud of its past, Tehuantepec is still more confident of its future, as 

 controlling one of the future commercial highways of the world. The railway 



Fig. 59. — Salina Ceitz, the new Poet of Tehuantepec. 

 Scalp I : 60,000. 



Dep hs 



to 5 

 Fathoms. 



."i Fathoms 

 and upwards. 



_ 2,200 Yards. 



across the isthmus is making rapid progress, and has already surmounted the 

 highest passes of the hills between the two oceans, so that the coffee grown on the 

 Pacific slope is now often forwarded by the overland route, saving several thousand 

 miles between Central America and Europe. 



About nine miles to the south-west lies the old port of Tehuantepec, on a 

 badly sheltered bay, which would have to be protected by expensive hydraulic 

 works to make it suitable for its future traffic ; meanwhile choice had to be made 

 of Saliiia Cruz Bay, where the shipping finds some shelter behind a pier at the 

 terminus of the interoceanic route. 



East of Tehuantepec, on the strips of sand between the lagoons and the sea, are 

 Gcattered some 3,000 Huabi fishers, the last of a race whose ancestors contended 



