1896 
rest of the week, however, anyone found about the streets under the 
Pinotepa 
del Estado 
influence of liqueur is at once locked up. She new governor of the 
State has recently issued a circular to all authorities urging them to 
improve and keep in good repair the roads and particularly calls atten¬ 
tion to the practice of burning over large tracts of forest and orders 
the local authorities to prevent this. Such circulars, however, will 
have but little effect when the authorities themselves are doing this 
on the common lands. As no plows are used, the lands are roughly clear- 
- - 
ed and planted one or two seasons to corn or other crop. Then the soil 
becomes so hard packed that a crop cannot be grown and this land is 
abandoned and a new forest area is cut out for a field. As the most 
moist and richest spots of land on hill or bottom are selected, it 
follows that the best parts of the forest are thus destroyed and as the 
dry brush on this newly cleared land is burned at the end of the dry 
season the fire extends into the woods on all sides and often burns over 
large areas. 
Jamiltepec 
(Oaxaca) 
On February 23rd, I sent my assistant on to Juquila with the outfit, 
leaving me at Pinotepa until my horse can travel. Finally on the 28th 
I hired a horse to ride and taking a moso along to lead my horse and re- 
'' . * * i ■ ' • 
turn with the other one, I left Pinotepa and crossed 22 miles of hilly 
M‘ •• U- ' 
country overgrown with brush and scrubby trees varied by a few barren 
grassy areas to the town of Jamiltepec, the head of the district. The 
hills run from 100 to 600 feet along road and are all of the same white 
granite noted everywhere along this coast. The town is at an altitude 
r 
of about 1000 feet and has numerous cocoanut palms scattered about the 
plaoe. It is a poor eolleetion of huts or jaeales with a few small poor¬ 
ly made adobe houses in the middle of the town. 
On the 2nd of November, 1894, the same strong earthquake shock was 
284 *■* 
