On the Mexican highlands, with a passing glimpse of Cuba . the train was starting, I asked somequestions of the American conductor and, aftera little conversation with him, was surprised tofind that he was a West Virginian from Kanawha.^Senor Brooks, he said, who had grown up near^Coals Mouth, now St. Albans. He was de-lighted to learn from me of Charleston and theKanawha Valley, and hoped some day to returnand see the home of his childhood. He now lovedMexico. Its dry and sunny climate had given himlife, when in the colder latitude of West Virginiahe would have perished. During the night, whi
On the Mexican highlands, with a passing glimpse of Cuba . the train was starting, I asked somequestions of the American conductor and, aftera little conversation with him, was surprised tofind that he was a West Virginian from Kanawha.^Senor Brooks, he said, who had grown up near^Coals Mouth, now St. Albans. He was de-lighted to learn from me of Charleston and theKanawha Valley, and hoped some day to returnand see the home of his childhood. He now lovedMexico. Its dry and sunny climate had given himlife, when in the colder latitude of West Virginiahe would have perished. During the night, while crossing the summitof the Sierra, at La Cima,—nearly eleven thousandfeet above the sea,—it became intensely coldagain, even colder than when we crossed the moun-tains near Saltillo. The chill again awoke me,when I discovered that we were rolling down intothe valley of Anahuac toward the City of were soon below the mists and beneath acloudless sky, yet I felt no undue heat, but rather,a quickening exhilaration in the pure, dry air. As 52. A CARGADORE BEARING VEGETABLES On to Mexico City we curved and twisted and descended the sharpgrades, many vistas of exceeding beauty burstupon the eye. We were entering a wide valleyof great fertility surrounded by lofty mountains,and to the far south, fifty miles away, the burn-ished domes of Popocatepetl and Ixtacciuhatl,lifted their ice crests into space, eighteen thousandfeet above the level of the sea. Far beneath usglittered and glinted the waters of Lakes Tezcoco,Xochimilco and Chalco, once joined, but now sep-arated, by the rescued land on which stood Te-nochtitlan, the mighty capital of Montezuma, evenyet to-day a city exceeding four hundred thousandsouls (when Cortez conquered it, it is said to haveheld more than a million). Everywhere the eyerested upon fruitful land, tilled under irrigation,containing plantations of maguey, orchards oforanges and limes, and pomegranates, and grovesof figs and olives—all forming a
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookidonmexicanhig, bookyear1906
