Am.  Jour.  Pharra. 
Dec,  1893. 
Vanilla. 
575 
into  new  and  strange  surroundings.  Let  us  stop  for  a  moment  in 
the  investigation  of  a  scene  of  interest. 
We  find  here  a  singular  and  instructive  commentary  upon  the 
silver  question  that  is  now  agitating  the  country.  I  found  that  in 
spending  money  that  this  is  one  of  the  best  countries  in  the  world 
for  this  purpose — the  more  money  I  spent  the  more  I  had  left, 
owing  to  the  very  low  price  of  silver,  and  Mexican  finances  being 
based  on  silver  values.  The  Mexican  dollar  (or  peso)  is  worth  65 
cents,  and  an  American  dollar  is  worth  $x.6o.  When  I  bought 
$1.50  worth  of  goods,  and  gave  a  $5  note  I  received  $6.25  in 
change,  and  it  struck  me  as  one  of  the  most  wonderful  things  in 
political  economy  that  I  had  ever  seen. 
My  next  stop  was  in  San  Louis  Potosi,  300  miles  from  Monterey. 
It  has  a  population  of  60,000.  On  the  way  you  cross  the  Tropic 
of  Cancer  and  pass  from  the  temperate  to  the  torrid  zone.  Here 
we  come  to  fields  and  fields  of  the  green  Century  plant. 
I  next  visited  Toiuca,  some  300  miles  south  of  San  Louis  Potosi, 
and  45  miles  north  of  the  city  of  Mexico,  the  capital  of  the  govern- 
ment, where  I  spent  nine  days. 
Leaving  the  city  of  Mexico  I  proceeded  to  Pueblo,  then  to  Jalapa, 
and  on  to  Vera  Cruz,  taking  the  Ward's  line  of  steamers  up  the 
coast  to  Tuxpan,  where  I  arrived  after  a  thirty  hours'  sail.  Here  a 
tug  came  to  the  mouth  of  the  Tuxpan  River  and  took  me  off,  steam- 
ing up  the  river  nine  miles  to  the  city  of  Tuxpan.  The  city  has 
10,000  inhabitants,  and  is  composed  principally  of  one  story,  lime- 
stone, thatched  houses.  After  spending  three  or  four  days  here 
getting  my  outfit  together,  consisting  of  four  mustangs,  servants, 
guide  and  interpreter,  we  started  early  on  Monday  morning  for  the 
Vanilla  land. 
Hastening  on,  we  rode  through  a  dense  forest  by  a  bridle  path, 
where  we  had  to  go  single  file,  which  brought  us  to  an  Indian  vil- 
lage on  the  Casonies  River,  after  some  thirty  miles  of  hard  riding 
besides  having  to  ford  several  rivers.  I  would  state  here  that  the 
sun  is  intensely  hot  at  midday,  so  that  the  most  of  the  people  retire 
from  about  1 1  to  2  o'clock.  We  stopped  about  1 1  o'clock,  at  a 
small  village  composed  of  bamboo  and  thatched  houses,  where  we 
waited  until  four  o'clock  before  proceeding  on  our  journey,  and 
arriving  at  Casonies  in  the  evening  at  about  twilight.  On  the 
Casonies  River  we  saw  hundreds  of  Indian  canoes  plying  up  and 
