142 MEXICO, CENTEAL AMEEICA, WEST INDIES. 



the nortlieru approach to the isthmus, has also been chosen as the junction of the 

 line which is intended to run from Vera Cruz towards Yucatan and Guatemala. 



The neighbouring town of Jalt'tpan is dominated by a mound which, according 

 to the local tradition, was raised by Cortes to the memory of Malintzin, or Dona 

 Marina, the Indian woman to whose sagacity and foresight he was probably indebted 

 for the conquest of Mexico. A French and Swiss colony founded in 1828 at Lo>i 

 Ahnagres survived a few years despite the climate and homesickness. The few 

 remaining settlers were at last dispersed amongst the Mexican towns. A Chinese 

 merchant of San Francisco, owner of extensive estates in the isthmus, has recently 

 introduced a large number of his fellow-countrymen into the same district, where 

 they are employed on the rice and tea plantations. 



III. — East Mexico. 

 Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeachy, Yucatan. 



The Chiapas highlands, distinctly separated by the dejîression of the Tehuan- 

 tepec isthmus from the Mexican tablelands, belong evidently to the same natural 

 region as the highlanrls and plateaux of Guatemali. Both are disposed in a con- 

 tinuous chain, with their steep escarpments turned towards the Pacific, while 

 the opposite slopes fall gently northwards towards the alluvial lands of Tabasco 

 and the plains of Yucatan. This peninsula, whose roots are, so to say, sunk in the 

 morasses and branching deltas of Tabasco, projects its huge quadrilateral mass 

 beyond the continental coastline in the direction of Cuba, and is continued by a 

 submerged plateau, which forms geographically a part of that island. Thus the 

 whole of East Mexico from Chiapas to Yucatan constitutes a natural region quite 

 distinct from the rest of the republic, from which it also differs in the origin and 

 history of its inhabitants, both in pre- and post-Columbian times. But in pro- 

 portion to its size it is greatly inferior in importance to West Mexico. It is but 

 sparsely peopled, and its great natural resources have scarcel}^ begun to be utilised. 

 The four eastern states have an estimated population of not more than six or eigHt 

 to the square mile. 



The natural parting-line of the two regions indicated by the Tehuantepec 

 peninsula was also formerly a political frontier. Under the Spanish rule Chiapas 

 was temporarily attached to the administrative division of Oaxaca in 1776, but for 

 nearly the whole of the three hundred years that elapsed from Alvarado's con- 

 quering expedition of 1523 to the proclamation of independence in 1823, Chiapas 

 and the Pacific province of Soconusco were simple dependencies of the viceroyalty 

 of Guatemala. When Guatemala entered the Mexican union, the two dependent 

 provinces also became an integral part of Iturbide's empire. But when Guatemala 

 again asserted its political autonomy, it was unable to recover more than a small 

 part of Soconusco, and the disputed frontier was not determined even in diplo- 

 matic documents till the year 1882. 



Yucatan, also, which had constituted a special division in the viceroyalty of 

 New Spain, became a Mexican province after the jDroclamation of independence. 



