172 MEXICO. 



into the infected region one hour before it was impera- 

 tively necessary. 



At length all seemed arranged. We despatched the 

 bulk of our baggage to the coast, by the arrieros ; the 

 precise hour of sailing seemed fixed, and determining to 

 take a circuitous road to Puebla de los Angeles, we 

 counted upon arriving at Jalapa some days before the 

 time specified, and on remaining there till the very last 

 moment before we should be obliged to go on board. 



In defiance of the businesslike duties which occupied 

 us the latter days of our stay, however, I contrived to 

 extend my knowledge of the vicinity of the capital by 

 various excursions of a greater or lesser range from the 

 barriers. And from these, you may pardon my singling 

 out one, which I made to the Desierto, a ruined and for- 

 saken Carmelite monastery, perched on the sierra to the 

 westward, about seven leagues distant from the capital. 

 My companion for the day was an English resident of 

 the city ; and two mounted domestics completed our 

 company. 



We left the city at sunrise, and passing along the line 

 of the aqueduct to Chapultepec, followed the road to the 

 left towards Tacubaya. We skirted that beautiful vil- 

 lage, and began the ascent of the sterile, upland tract 

 immediately behind, by the main road leading across the 

 mountains to the elevated plateau of Toluca. # 



The bareness of the first part of the ascent is extreme; 

 and cultivation is confined to a few plantations of maguey 

 in the vicinity of the scattered villages, or on the imme- 

 diate border of the rivulets flowing down the barrancas, 

 with which the flanks of the mountains are seen to be 

 everywhere furrowed. All these slopes were once cov- 

 ered with forests, but the heedless destruction of the 



* The table land of Toluca lies 8,530 feet over the Pacific, and nearly 

 eleven hundred over the valley of Mexico. It is the most elevated of 

 the four principal plateaux of Mexico, but produces fine crops of 

 guey and mai%e* 



