154 MEXICO, CEXTEAL AMERICA, WEST INDIES. 



of the sun round the horizon. The regular trades are also frequently interrupted 

 by the fierce gales coming from the north, that is, from the Texan and Mississippi 

 plains. The driest mouths aie March, AjDril and May, when showers are extremely 

 rare. But, as in Chiapas, this dry season is immediately followed by torrential 

 downpours and thunderstorms, lasting till November, when the almost rainless 

 regular winds again set in. The year might thus be divided into three periods, 

 a dry, a wet, and a windy season. 



For Europeans the Yucatan climate is one of the most dangerous in the Gulf. 

 Yellow fever often sweeps away numerous victims ; but still more dreaded is 

 consumption, which is both endemic and hereditary, alike fatal to those con- 

 stitutionally predisposed and to persons enjoying good health and strength. 

 Mexican soldiers, removed as a punishment to the peninsula, consider themselves 

 /oredoomed to death. In Tabasco, a watery region where the people live as much 

 afloat as on dry land, the prevailing epidemic is marsh fever. In this moist land 

 consumption, the scourge of the dry Yucatan plateau, is almost unknown. 



Both the flora and the fauna of Chiapas and Yucatan belong to the same zone 

 as those of south INIexico, with the addition of various forms characteristic of 

 Central America. This southern region, intermediate between Mexico proper 

 and the isthmuses, nowhere presents any desert wastes, and the vegetation is 

 extremely luxuriant in many places, even on the slopes of the Soconusco 

 Mountains and the neiffhbourino' coastlands, where the rainfall is far from 

 copious. Tree ferns, the cacao and other plants requiring much moisture and 

 a constantly humid atmosphere, grow vigorously, while on the lowlands rice 

 thrives without irrigation. The scanty rainfall is here supplemented by the 

 moisture percolating below the surface from the rising grounds. Even the arid 

 limestone plains of Yucatan are clothed with a stunted vegetation ; very different, 

 however, from the magnificent forest growths festooned with lianas, which cover 

 the fertile districts of Chiapas and Tabasco. Little is seen except thorny scrub 

 and cactus or agave thickets, without any of the large species which, on the 

 Anahuac uplands, grow to a height of over 30 feet. Here the rain-water dis- 

 appears too rapidly in the porous limestone to nourish a rich vegetation. 



Amongst the plants peculiar to Chiapas and Yucatan, and not found in Mexico 

 proper, there are many trees and dyewoods, such as mahogany and campeachy, or 

 logwood {hivmatoxijlon cnmpechianum). The former ig even more common in 

 various parts of Central America than in Tabasco, while the latter is exclusively 

 confined to the region from which it takes its ordinary name. In favourable 

 localities this hard-grdned plant sometimes attains a height of from 40 to 45 feet. 



Amongst the more remarkable members of the Chiapas fauna is the "snuff- 

 box " tortoise, which bus its lower shell furnished at both ends with two appen- 

 dices enabling it to shut itself completely up and defy all enemies. 



IXHABITAKTS. 



Like that of xVnahuac, the population of East Mexico is very mixed, although 

 the indigenous clement is here relatively greater. The Nahuas proper are repre- 



