Bright days in sunny lands . ordinary daysjourney; in fact, to see the landscape by daylight, it isnecessary to break the journey on the Interoceanic atPuebla, while on the other railway nearly all of it canbe seen between early morning and sundown. It iswell that it is so; it removes the temptation to travel-ers to traverse a region fraught with so much of nat-ural beauty, for no one ever pauses at Puebla and re-grets the detention. On the whole I am quite certain that, starting fromthe City of Mexico at in the morning, and reach-ing Puebla at in the afternoon—a distance of onlyeigh
Bright days in sunny lands . ordinary daysjourney; in fact, to see the landscape by daylight, it isnecessary to break the journey on the Interoceanic atPuebla, while on the other railway nearly all of it canbe seen between early morning and sundown. It iswell that it is so; it removes the temptation to travel-ers to traverse a region fraught with so much of nat-ural beauty, for no one ever pauses at Puebla and re-grets the detention. On the whole I am quite certain that, starting fromthe City of Mexico at in the morning, and reach-ing Puebla at in the afternoon—a distance of onlyeighty miles as the crow flies, but one hundred andthirty miles by rail—the traveler will be greatly sur^prised at the evidences of thrift, richness of soil andluxuriance of vegetable plants that will greet his eyes,in contrast to the paucity of these things on the lineof the other railway between Puebla Junction and theCity of Mexico. He will have Popocatepetl and Ixtac-cihautl in front of or beside him for nearly the whole. TO PUEBLA AND THE SEA 401 journey, and the eye never seems to weary of thesemonarchs, now so quiet, and yet in times past activevolcanoes. Leaving Mexico one soon comes again upon themaguey, or pulque plant, and perhaps it is a goodplace here in which to say a few words concerning call it the century plant, but how long it lives noone seems to know; it does not require a hundredyears for flowering, and when it does finally flow-er it is ready to die. From eight to twelve years onlyare necessary for the plant to reach sufficient perfectionto give out the sap, which is the most popular drinkof the people. Thereafter its leaves can be taken forthatching, or for making paper or thread; pins andneedles can be made out of its thorns, and its rootmakes a palatable food. It was for the Aztec, in fact, meat, drink, clothing and writing material, and isto-day the most useful plant in the Republic. To se-cure the sap, the stem is cut off and hollowed out, andth
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectvoyagesandtravels
