IOO 
RUBBER PLANTING ON THE 
“But don’t any of the older ones go into the sugar business, too?” 
he inquired. 
The whole of the first day’s ride on Mexican soil was through a 
lofty plateau, very bare and dry, the chief vegetation being the giant 
cactus. In spite of the closing of the car windows, the fine alkali dust 
sifted in, coating everything, and making it quite difficult to breathe. 
Towards evening we reached the mining city of Zacatecas, which is more 
than eight thousand feet above the sea level, where we were told that 
we should have difficulty in breathing, because of the rarefied atmos- 
phere. As a matter of fact, none of us suffered the slightest incon- 
venience. We did suffer a disappointment in not being able to see the 
city, which lies hundreds of feet below the railway, but night had fallen, 
MAQUEY PLANTATION NEAR MEXICO CITY. 
and we could only guess its location from the twinkling lights far below 
us. The next morning we passed through Queretara, where Maximilian 
was executed, and breakfasted at Tula, a station some miles further on. 
Here we were introduced afresh to the staple articles of Mexican food, 
the tortilla and the frijole. The former is a flat cake of unleavened bread 
made of corn flour, that tears like blotting paper and is about as palatable. 
It is made by the native women, who treat the corn first with a solution 
of Ive to destroy the outer skin, and then they crush it on a little three- 
legged stone table, called a matatc, by means cf a stcne mono or rolling 
pin. This, mixed with water, is baked, and is apparently much prized 
by the natives. The frijoles or Mexican beans are of two kinds, negros 
and blanca — that is, black and white. To my palate the black ones are 
