H6 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Skptsmbto 23, 1881. 



pounds of baggage, whirli was nil ivr. were permitted to curry 

 on the Tain from Vera Cruz in the City of Mexico. Tbusa 

 few had to pay the ojjo bita i. charge tit tWenty-threeMfeXicai] 



dollars for some odds and ends of extra baggage. Vera Oruz 

 itself is in summer like all of the rest of Mexican tOWDS — hot, 

 sickly and appears u w like a city of the dead, hardly lessin 

 size 111 ii Its treat grave-yard near by. 

 _ All travelers from abroad leave of course aL once when ar- 

 riving here for the interior, and we wen not s'ow to follow 

 suit by immediately transferring ourselves to the firsi. depart- 

 ing train, I his was arranged af'cr the manner of some Of 

 our way-freight trains, ami consisted chiefly of freight cars, 

 With an American-built pas-enger ear attached lo it a' one 

 end, and a powerful double engine at the other. Thela'ter 

 may best be described by imagining two heavy American 

 freig'it engiues wiih their tenders detatched, then coupled to- 

 gether, and the fire-place in their u.iddl ■•. Their great 

 weight of sixty-live tons is explained by the steep grades be- 

 tween Vera Cruz and the City of Mexico. 



The neighborhood of Vera Cruz it-elf is not very attractive 

 asthelotvn at a distance of over thirty miles i surrounded 

 by dreary and barren-looking low sand hills, hut beyond 

 them the lard rises abruptly. We perceived this quickly by 

 the heavy grades of i fie road in its gndbal approach to the 

 inipo&nnj and intervening Continuation Of the chain of the 

 RoCby Mountains among which the volcano of Orizaba forms 

 an imposing view. Our first sta' ion is Tigeria, atMlt bine 

 miles Eri in Vera Cruz, noted for its very solidly-i'inll. station 

 house, winch is surrounded, however, US usual by a lot of 

 diuy low adobe huts, the usual domicile of 'he Mexican 

 peons. The train harries onward, and we reach Solid >d, 

 twenty-aix miles further on, where we cross a river of l lie 

 same nan e. Then cornea Camorro and Astoyac, and beyond 

 a, one of 1he mosi important at all OJ the sta- 

 tions between Vera i ruz and Mexico, and distant four miles 

 fmmtLec:t\ of Cordoba th its population of about 18,000 

 inhabitants. Here the, 'Topical aspect of the landscape be- 

 comes truly magnificent. The dry, s mdy patches and hills 

 EDW disappear, and are replaced by bright green-colored plan- 

 tations of tall, waving sugar cane and low miniature forests 

 of coffee trees, siid to produce the best coffee grown within 

 the (lima ns of the .Mexican republic, 



We arrive at 7 P U. tu« Same day at Orizaba Station, 

 where we res', a little, while and proceed toward the Elob I ' 

 Di igencia, in a home like looking, veritable street car, built 

 by bieveuson, the New York manufacturer. We pay for a 

 ride of a quarter of a mile two reals, about t wenty-ftve cents, 

 and enjoy here, for ihe first time si oe leaving the steamer, 

 the luxury of u good bed and sapper, with strong b'ack coffee 

 in the eveui g, all of Which costs us near two dolla s. 1 re- 

 gret that time and circumstances prevented me irom obtain- 

 ing more than a passj g glimpse of Orizaba, -which, judging 

 from appearances, must, be a very i Id and interesting city. I 

 noticed, on hurriedly passing by, abr dgca toss the San Juan 

 River, which traverses th'B pi ce. It was built iu 1663 and 

 looks even now, notwithstanding its old age, solid enough to 

 stand the weir an I tear of half a dozen more centuries. 

 Every public and private building hereabouts seems to be co'l- 

 strucied with a view to durability. The walls of our h'tel 

 are 'hree feet (hick and of solid masonry, while the massive- 

 looking doors are almost strong enough to serve as a main 

 gateway of a for ress. After leaving Orizaba we were trans- 

 ferred to the regular passenger, tram, which bad left Vera 

 Cruz before we arrived, and the speed of which, for six 

 hours, had thus far been hardly over fifteen miles an hour. 

 We are. now cai lied along at a superior rate, as our train con- 

 sists chiefly Of an agglomerate of more or less commodious 

 passe- ger "cars. First comes a double endue, like that of 

 onr discarded freight, then a mail car wrh the ma 1 in one 

 end, and tools, ammunition and provisions in the o her. At- 

 tached to ibis is a flrSWlass coach Of English pattern and a 

 second-class car res milling those used on oil! emg'a it 

 trains. Last of ail there is a third-class car with longi- 

 tudinally-arrayed seats'. This carries an e-c >rt of twenty 

 soldieis, a dirty ra.ged set of fellows. They are Sta! Oli I 

 not only upon every regular train, but also at every station 

 no matter how small. Queer-looking soldiers they are; 

 some wiih bOOtS, .nh.-rs w 111 shoes, and othe s barefoot. 

 Tin y wear lint'tl pants, none the better for want of soap, 

 knitted red j ckets with a sort of linen coat over Ibis, and 

 above all a heavy blue blanket with a bole in the middle of 

 it, through whj'h, i hey poke their beads, which are sur- 

 mounted by large sombreros. Their arms consist of a car- 

 bin'\ with a belt lull ol for v- four-calibre earc idges, and a 

 large army revolver, along Willi a heavy cavalry sabre. If 

 anus only could make men, they would have been magnificent 

 specimens of the type, but as one of our party remarked, 

 " Take away their tools and I can lick a half a doz.n of them 

 wi h my fists.'' 



"Whenever our tr in halts at any s'ation it is at one" sur- 

 rouu- ed with t. lot of beggars and crippl s of every grade and 

 shade who prey lallsi ledalk/ Americans, whom 



they know by experience lo u- liberal. Even soldiers are 

 well-practiced in the art of soliciting cbicitv, providing the 

 officers are not iu sight. Tien there a'e squids of women 

 and children selling to //•,-., which me slices oi bread dipped 

 in fat and covered wiib pieces of garlic and red pepper. It 

 is needless to add that our party disdained to partake of a <J 

 of these sandwiches, which seem to be exclusively mlnp'ed 

 for Mexican stomachs. Some of the girls Oiler pUl&U& for 

 ,n i a repulsive -lo king mess, not unlike aoap-su Is, 

 from which it differs chii By by its horrid odor. It is 

 made from the juice of the maguey, a species of cactus. I 

 saw mill i while passing through with the train 



This is a favorile drink wi h the lower classes, as it is cheap 

 and also intoxicating. All of these ways of living lend to 

 k> ep these people la p iverty. ' 1 saw an Indian, who had a 

 Urge black bug suspended from bis neck. Jt was about two 

 and a half Inches in length, with six legs on each side, an t 

 appearing to anybody else In si les a lover of curious natural 

 Objects as a repulsive loving cr atnre. 1 asloil him what, he 

 carried it for ; and he i ei devoutly crossing him- 



self, that it exempted bun from all diseases. Th s mai.de in- 

 sect must be seaice, or else the population would hardly be 



fever stricken as it appears to be An Imperfect one waa 



effemi to uoe tot' etgh y cents which I, however, thought un- 

 reasonable and, having a medicine chest, I refused to por- 

 ch use it. 



After leaving Orizaba we encounter heavier grades as we 

 cross the ores' of i In- continued backbone of (air own iioeky 

 Mountains. We climb over grades of 200 feet to the mile. 

 At one place called La Frata we saw a train ahead of us away 

 upon i be mountain lop and hilly 3,000 feet above MS. I 

 could loudly realize that «n had to -unnotinl these elevations 

 to in urn o'-i! apparently low situation, but such soon was 

 the case, and we commuictd the ascent after a careful iu- 



sprckm of all of our couplings and brakes by the officials in 

 charge. 



I have traveled the world over and have seen many im- 

 posing views of mountainous countries, many wild, ruggi d 

 rocks on the ocean shore, against which the surf recoils in 

 milky foam, but the grandeur of the scenety now opening 

 before us as we sped through the distance < f 140 miles from 

 izuba to Esperanzasnrpa-ses all my imagination could pos- 

 sibly picture or combine into visible and enchanting reali- 

 ties. Time and again stem and almost, vertical cliffs a 

 thousand feet or more in lnightforrn an impassable barrier 

 on one side of the corkscrew wnding road, while precipices 

 of double ihe depth threaten to receive the panting engine 

 into their deep abysses. We passed several deep gorges, 

 spanned over with spid<-rweb-like iron bridges of greater 

 length aud depth than that of the famous Portage Bridge 

 along Ihe track of the Eiie Railway. The elevations above 

 and around us were mostly covered with a dense and uniform 

 indigenous growth of the Western pine, along with agreit 

 variety of bushes and beautiful wild flowers, some of which 

 were (railing along the ground like our own arbutus. Sev- 

 eral of our fellow-passengers were tourists, who traveled on 

 business, along with a s rinkling of amateur artists and ex- 

 citement and novelty seekers. They all unanimously agreed 

 ihat for sublimity of views and grandeur of scenery this' part 

 of our con inent stands unrivaled. All this, taken in con- 

 nection with a most saluhrions climate, where the tempera- 

 lure hardly ever raisas above 70 deg. F., winter and summer, 

 along with ihe low ra es for fill necessities of life, point to 

 this country as perhaps the most desirable region to visit 

 during our cold and severe winters. The building of this 

 road must have taxed to l he utmost the highe-t engineering 

 skill tooveicome all of these immense obstacles of heavy 

 grades, deep ravines and opposing mourn ains, many of which 

 hail to be tunneled. I counted no less than sixteen of these 

 excavations on my way. At last wc arrive on the summit of 

 the range of the Las Combras Mountains, though only to 

 find still higher ranges in front of us, which overtop these 

 lo' tyr elevations. Up lo the very clouds the locomotive makes 

 its toilsome ascent, until we reach Esperanza, Ihe first staiioo, 

 upon the gr at table land of Central Mexico and nearly 6,000 

 feet above the level of the sea. 



Here we leave the lofty snow-crowned peak of Orizaba, 

 which fades away into the horizon, and discard our heavy 



m iiain-cli'ubiug double engine for one of the ordinary 



pal torn of those on our road3 at; home. Our grades are few 

 and easy. We speed onward through a beautiful and ap- 

 parently finely-cultivated country covered with green wuving 

 fields of corn, wheat, beans, peas and cactus, with many 

 fresh looking meadows which must afford excellent pasture 

 to numerous flocks (if live slock of all descriptions which we 

 see, including horses and donkeys. We arrive at last at the 

 Cily of Mexico, 203 mil s from Vera Cruz. 



We were kindly received by the chief clerk of the com- 

 pany, who took charge of our party, consisting of four civil 

 engineers, three bridge builders, one tel-graph constructor, 

 and myself. We repaired to the Hotel La Grande Sociedad, 

 ihe best of its kind in the Cily of Mexico, where we ar- 

 rived b t me to find an excellent supper spread before us. 

 The climate and Ihe average Mexican bill of fare are hardly 

 Btrted to the stra.ger who com. s here from the cool North 

 with a still vigorous and unimpaired appetite. We are 

 treated here to a cup of strong coffee at 8. a. u. along with 

 some light Cike. Breakfast is not served before 12 noon. 

 It is a rather substantial meal, divided into five courses of 

 meats, chickens, egg3 vegetables and fiuits, with coffee. 

 Choc date appears at 5 p. m. ; and supper, which resembles 

 subs ' an i mil y the breakfast, comes at 8 p. m. As we could 

 not well adapt our stomachs to this new-fashioned regime, 

 we ordered our meals after our own likings, though hardly 

 to that of the c ioks and waiters, who found leisure time ma- 

 terially shortened by this arrangement. 



We had a good opportunity to view the City of Mexico 

 before resuming cur journey to ihe interior. Whatever 

 Mexico m,y have been under the ancient rule of the Monte- 

 zutnas, and during ihe la'er disturbances which have period- 

 ica ly convulsed this beautiful earthly paradise of nature, it 

 now certainly presents the appearance of an orderly and at- 

 tractive-looking city, with well paved broad streets, elega't 

 stores aril clean and spacious markets, teeming with all 

 possible ve elable products of temperate and tropical zones. 



'I he majority of public buildings, pre-eminently of churches, 

 are or very ancient date. The grand cathedral was built in 

 1671 aud i's who'e front is go geously carved, while its 

 foundations seem to be built over a ledge of irregularly dis- 

 posed b own rock, which is overlappi d by the mas- airy of 

 tee build ng and only crops out here and there. The gar- 

 dens and public squares are full of butterflies and glittering 

 humming birds, whi'e again the interior of many house* 

 often swarm with scorpions and tarantu'as, of which I caught, 

 to-day an enormous specimen. 



[to he oontcnttbd.] 



AN EARLY AUTUMN REVERIE. 



ONE of the first sights betokening the end of the passing 

 of summer is that of the fleldsof sheaved cornstalks, amid 

 whose regularly stacked yellow ranks the ripe pumpkin 

 gleams on ihe brown earth as ruddily as the full, Ted-faced 

 harvest moon, which I oks in the cold " stilly night " from 

 over the darkly-outlined hill-top into the cultivated, stream- 

 watered vale. At this seasm the wooded hillocks show as 

 yet none of (.hit vivid, beautiful spattering of coloring, for 

 which the woodlands of North America are so justly cele- 

 brated. Early September finds them in their saddest-looking 

 garb of rusty yellow and faded green, Ihe result of the pro- 

 line ed droughts and scorching suns of August. Much of 

 is already dying or dead, in sombre draping, and 

 it needs t he copious, drenching rains of the Equinox to pre- 

 pare thfe drooping woodlands to battle in golden panop'y and 

 crimson standards with the ghostly, scythe-like sweep of the 

 while frost under the late October moon. 



Driving along the orchard-lined roads one finds the air pe- 

 culiarly sweetened with the odor of ripe and fallen apple : and 

 the thud of some prematurely develop dpippinas itsatrikesthe 

 ground already is the only sound heard above the tree-toad's 

 nolo around the slumber-wrapped larmhouse. 



Where the willow-lined river loses itself in the shade of 

 Ihe swamp woodland, the reflected coloring of the swamp 

 maples, always the fust to discard the slumbering green of 

 sensuous Summer and don ihe gay tartan of sport-loving au- 

 tumn, mingles in splashes of red with the water grass's 

 bright olive. Away up on the faded green hillside the smoke 

 from the chimney-pots of an occasional farmhouse drifts 

 above the gnarled orchurd tops, showing that the cool breath 

 of new born Autumn is blowing away the heat of lingering 

 summer, which at noonday still evinces itself. 



Yesterday morn I shot a wondcock— not an unu-u d thing , 

 reader, but the first, fall bird hereof the year — and asbesprung 

 from beneath my setter's nose above ihe low alders. I siw by 

 the unusual spread of wing and almo-t, yes quite, black 

 marking of his broad, brown back, that he wa3 truly an 

 au'umn bird. And when I had done watching his powerful 

 and graceful wingings, I fired but to miss^him in the open ; 

 yet I was glad of it. — it were worth a miss to see him rise 

 again with that glorious, tremulous whistle. And wben I 

 cut him down, turning him completely over as he swung by 

 me, I suffered not the. dogs to retrieve him, but commanding 

 "at charge," I walked to where he lay — as he had fallen — on 

 a bog tuft, the full, reddish brown brea3t upturned, with the 

 pink legs and heavily-feathed thighs drawn up as he hid car- 

 ried them in darting from the alder covert gloom into the 

 golden sunlight ; the round black eye high set, on either side 

 of thp almost whitely-feathertd forehead — a grand full eight- 

 ounce autumn cock. 



Many summer woodcock have I shot the past season, but 

 as I seated myself on a broad s'one beside the rivulet, with 

 this precursor of autumn's field sports in my hand, my 

 thoughts flew back to a twelvemonth ago, and just beyond 

 those purple western hills, to a little village churchy aid, 

 where a beloved companion of many season's shooting was 

 laid away, as the leaves of early autumn began to fall — at the 

 beginning of Ihe time be loved so well. 



Within sight and almost gunshot of that slab-covered 

 slope lies the swampy precinct of the old Mud Pond, with 

 its beds of lily pads,its banks of heron-haunted reeds growing 

 near the encircling perimeter of tall alders and swamp wood- 

 land, which cover the boggy bottoms at the foot of the sur- 

 rounding pasture hillsides — a damp and lonely spot, instan- 

 taneously suggestive of those lines of " Forester's." 



" swift, the woodenck's, wing Is nytnsr 



Down the vale to the lonely hrake ; 

 And the teal her brood is tiMln? 



In t he reeds by the lnhed lake." 



For many a cock and quail have we dropped round about 

 that marshy pondside ; and when comes the brilliant flush of 

 autumn again the crack of the sho'-gun coming up the vale 

 will be heard over that brown mound of earth wih its white 

 Btone mutely indicating that there there is all that was of 

 "Wes" Austin, well known to the sporlsmen of Westchester 

 and Putoam coun'ies as the best sh t and most ardent game 

 protector in the region of the hill-surrounded Mahnpac Lake. 



Ah I those glorious tramps on the stubb'e-shorn, frosty 

 hillsides and thy companionship at evening beneath thy 

 humble roof, where, before a glowing fire and with lighted 

 pipes supplementing our well-earned '"supper" of th- rural 

 folk, we reviewed the rep art of a d >y well spent in the brac- 

 ing air of autumn. No more shall his full-toned ''Mark!" 

 ling through the covert-side and I stand on the hiby open, 

 where he would generously place me to down the bird, 

 which, flushed in the thicket, sailed ahove the osier top3, or 

 to see it, half veiled by the clinging clyma'is draping some 

 open glade, cut down by him ere it had gone ten yards, by a 

 quick Bnap shot from the hip. — ■' Never morel" 



And now the falling yellow leaves rustled with a mourn- 

 ful cadence agains' the alder stems or helped choke in noise- 

 less accumulation the stream flowing by me. " Hold up, 

 dogs; we will shoot no more to-day," and I dropped the 

 long-billed bird in my g-une pocket and took the road home- 

 ward, to the wonderment of some of the passers-by, who, 

 since my advent in this section have not yet grown familiar 

 with my Knickerbockers and " Tarn O'Sbanter." 



" Inlandvale," Sept. 15. FeiXk Wauwiok. 



THE RAIL WE SHOOT. 



DURING this month of September the attention of many 

 sporlsmen is turned to the rail family, or liallida. 

 Tuese birds are distributed over the whole world and three 

 of the most important sub-families into which they fall are 

 represented in this country, and their types are probably well 

 known to most rail shooters. 



The typical genera are Rallus, Pormia and C>ex in the 

 sub family Rallinm. Ion-ornUmA Oulliiiula. in the sub family 

 GallinuUna), and Fi/lica the only genus in Ihe sublamily 

 Fulicinm. A brief description of some of the more common 

 At'antic coast forms will assist onr readers in identifying 

 such of the group as they may secure duiing the shooting 

 season. 



In the g»nus Rallm the bill is long, slender, a little curved, 

 and somewhat compressed, while in Porzana and in Crtx it 

 is short and rather stout, re^embliug in sbane the bill in the 

 other groups. All of the liallida have the body muehcom- 

 pres-ed and the legs long, very muscular, and bare for some 

 distance above the tibia. The toes are long and slender and 

 the tail short and carried well elevated. 



Excepting during the migrations they make but little use 

 of their wings, but spend all their time on foot in the marshes. 

 The food of'the rails is in the autumn mainly vrgeiable, the 

 seeds of the wdd rice forming by far the erenter part of it. 

 They are supposed by sportsmen in general lo take their de- 

 parture for the South at the first bard frosts, and, certainly, 

 they are not found arter that in any considerable numbers on 

 the shooting grounds. One may occasion lly kill a bird or 

 two about ihe last of October or first of November, but they 

 are not numerous at that lime. 



Ballus elegans. And Freshwater Ma*sh hen. King rail. 



Length about 16 inches. Color above, brownish black, 

 streaked with olive brown; wing coverts ruddy chestnut^ 

 below, rich rufns, becoming paler on the belly, and whiten- 

 ing on the ibroat; flanks dull b'ack, barred with white. This 

 species is found chiefly in fresh water marshes. 



Rallus longirostrh "crepitans (Ginel) Ridgw. Capper rail, 

 Saltwater Marsh hen, Mud-hen. 



Somewhat smaller than the preceding, and colors through- 

 out paler. Length 14-16 inches. Flanks gm ish brown bar- 

 red with whi'e. In fact a faded copy of It. elegans. Salt 

 meadows of the Atlantic coast as far north as New England, 

 extraordinarily abundant on the Virginia and Maryland 

 marshes, where we have seen them by hundreds. 



UnttiM virginwnus. Linn. Virginia rail. Corncrake. 



Exactly similar in color to H. elegans, but much smaller. 

 Length 8| to 10£ inches. This spec es is not uncommon in 

 the marshes, but takes wing much less readily than the com- 

 mon Sora, and so is less frequently killed. We shot, one 

 once in July, during the woodcock shooting, in a little alder 

 swale. The bird was walked up from a patch of weeda at 

 the edge of the brush- 



