12 
CAVE AND CLIFF DWELLERS. 
Books innumerable have spoken of the 
tierra caliente, or low, hot lands near the 
coast, the tierra templada , or temperate 
lands of the interior plateaus, and the 
tierra fria , or cold lands of the moun¬ 
tains and higher plateaus ; and these sub¬ 
divisions are really good as explaining 
Mexican climate, but they give us but 
little idea of the country’s surface itself 
beyond that of altitude, and even less re¬ 
garding its resources and adaptability to 
the wants of man. The tierra caliente , 
or hot lands of the coast, are out of the 
question as habitations for white men ; 
but the tierra templada and tierra fria , 
as everyone familiar with climatology 
knows, gives us the finest climate in the 
world, as do all elevated plateaus in sub. 
tropical countries. But these elevated 
plateaus, or different portions of them, 
