ISTHMUS OF TEHUANTEPEC 
io5 
a brief stop at the mountain hedged city of Orizaba, we left the train 
at Cordoba, where the Spanish of my traveling companion was most help- 
ful in securing accommodations at a little Mexican hotel, where we had a 
really good dinner and comfortable beds. 
In the morning we took an early train over the Vera Cruz and Pacific 
road for Achotal, its terminus. Although the run is not a long one, 
it takes from six o’clock in the morning till one the following morning 
to make it. 
FICUS BEN JAM IN A. 
That we were getting into an unsettled country was much more 
apparent than ever before, the cars being guarded by rurales (the native 
military police), and the passengers, both Americans and Mexicans, having 
the free and easy demeanor which characterized the early days of the Far 
West. The conductors and train hands were Americans, as were many 
of the passengers, all of whom were going south and most of them 
interested in rubber planting projects. As was natural, the Americans 
