A trip to Mexico, being notes of a journey from Lake Erie to Lake Tezcuco and back, with an appendix, containing and being a paper about the ancient nations and races who inhabited Mexico before and (14577586008)

Identifier: triptomexicobein00bech (find matches)
Title: A trip to Mexico, being notes of a journey from Lake Erie to Lake Tezcuco and back, with an appendix, containing and being a paper about the ancient nations and races who inhabited Mexico before and at the time of the Spanish conquest, and the ancient stone and other structures and ruins of ancient cities found there
Year: 1880 (1880s)
Authors: Becher, Henry C. R
Subjects: Mexico -- Description and travel Mexico -- Antiquities
Publisher: Toronto : Willing and Williamson
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN



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us of the land of our home. Flowers arein abundance on either side of us, and we breastthe ascent so slowly, and are so close to them fre-quently, as to see their full forms and many shadesof colour distinctly as we pass. I note here thatthe Fairleigh locomotive is a wonder of power andfitness for its work ; without it they could not workthis railway, its gradients are so steep, its curvesso sharp. Soon we stop at, and pass, Alta Luz—hut look, oh look! there at last is Orizaba—immense,calm, majestic; in shape, reminding us of Etna !The train runs faster, and attains soon something-like level ground : we are (I quote Prescott) onthe summit of the cordillera of the Andes—thecolossal range, that after traversing South Americaand the Isthmus of Darien, spreads out as it entersMexico into that vast sheet of table land which main-tains an elevation of more than six thousand feetfor the distance of nearly two hundred leagues, un-til it gradually declines in the higher latitudes of ^ N
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BOCA DEL MONTE. 41 the north. We arrive at the station of Boca delMonte (mouth of the mountain), about nine oclock,very cold, but a great breakfast, beginning withsoup, going on with many courses, ending with astrange sweetmeat made from honey, and some ex-cellent coffee, makes us forget it, and in half an hourwe are pursuing our journey. Boca del Monte is8,326 feet above the sea, much higher than the val-ley of Mexico, so that we have to descend on our waythere. We have already seen infinitely more thanrepays us for the long journey we have taken—eventhe last three hours were more than enough to dothat. Were we to turn back now, we should bethankful that we came : shall we be more so as wego on ? The country is now tame, uninteresting, but forthree hours or more we keep Orizaba in sight; andsoon on the left Malintzi, another snow-cappedmountain, named by the Indians after Cortez andhis Indian mistress, who so much aided his conquest(they called both Malintzi), appears. It is a grea