18 MEXICO. 
most valuable merchandise and precious metals is conducted. They 
form a very large proportion of the population, yet, by no similar class 
elsewhere are they exceeded in devoted honesty, punctuality, patient 
endurance, and skillful execution of duty. Nor is this the less remarka- 
ble when we recollect the country through which they travel — its disturbed 
state — and the opportunities consequently 'afforded for transgression. I 
have never been more struck with the folly of judging of men by mere 
dress and physiognomy, than in looking at the Arrieros. A man with 
wild and fierce eyes, tangled hair, slashed trowsers, and greasy 
jerkin that has breasted many a storm — a person, in fact, to whom you 
would scarcely trust an old coat when sending it to your tailor for 
repairs — is frequently in Mexico, the guardian of the fortunes of the 
wealthiest men for months, on toilsome journies among the mountains and 
defiles of the inner land. He has a multitude of dangers and difficulties 
to contend with. He overcomes them all — is never robbed and never 
robs — and, at the appointed day, comes to your door with a respectful 
salutation, and tells you that your wares or monies have passed the city 
gates. Yet this person is often poor, bondless and unsecured — with noth- 
ing but his fair name and unbroken word. When you ask him if you 
may rely on his people, he will return your look vvith a surprised glance, 
and striking his breast, and nodding his head with a proud contempt that 
his honor should be questioned, exclaim : " Soy Jose Maria, Seiior, por 
veinte aiios Arriero de Mexico — todo el mundo me conoce .'" 
" I am Jose Maria, sir, I 'd have you know — an Arriero of Mexico for 
twenty years — every body knows me !" 
I regret, that I have been able to give only the faintest pencilling 
outlinB of Jalapa, which, with all its beauty, has doubtless hitherto been 
associated most nauseously iu your mind with the drug growing in the 
neighborhood to which it has given its name.* 
A beautiful scene, embracing nearly the whole of this little Eden, 
broke on me as we gained the summit of the last hill above the town. A 
dell, deep, precipitous, and green as if mossed from the margin of a wood- 
land spring lay below me, hung on every side with orange trees in bloom 
and bearing, nodding palms and roses and acacias scenting the air with 
their fragrance, and peering out among the white walls of dwellings, con- 
vents, and steeples. In the next quarter of an hour, the mists that had 
been gathering around the mountains, whirled down on the peaks along 
which we were travelling, and as the wind occasionally drifted the vapor 
away, we could see around us nothing but wild plains and mountain 
spurs covered v/ith volcanic debris, flung into a thousand fantastic forms, 
among which grew a hardy race of melancholy-looking pines, interspersed 
* To ?ive you an idea of the profusion of fruit in Jalapa 1 will state a fact. 1 gave a French senant a real 
'twelve and a half cents) to purchase me a few oranges, and in a short time he returned vvith a handkerchiei 
bui-sting under the load— he had received forty for the money. 
I told the story to a Julapenian with surprise : " They cheated him," said he ; " they should have given him 
nearly double the number." 
