Mexico, its ancient and modern civilisation, history and political conditions, topography and natural resources, industries and general development; . n in that high environment of rainsand snows, rippling streams descend, falling in cascadesand babbling rapids adown romantic glens, and theirlife-giving waters, with boisterous ripple or murmuringsoftly, take their way over silver sand-bar and polishedledge of gleaming quartz or marble, winding thenceamid corridors of stately trees and banks of verdantvegetation, to where they fill the irrigation-channels ofwhite-clad feasants, far away on the
Mexico, its ancient and modern civilisation, history and political conditions, topography and natural resources, industries and general development; . n in that high environment of rainsand snows, rippling streams descend, falling in cascadesand babbling rapids adown romantic glens, and theirlife-giving waters, with boisterous ripple or murmuringsoftly, take their way over silver sand-bar and polishedledge of gleaming quartz or marble, winding thenceamid corridors of stately trees and banks of verdantvegetation, to where they fill the irrigation-channels ofwhite-clad feasants, far away on the plains below. Still onwards and upwards lies the way. One of themost remarkable railways in the world ascends this steepzone, and serpentines among sheer descents to gain thesummits of abrupt escarpments, from which—a remark-able feature of the topography of the eastern slope ofMexico—the traveller looks down as into another countryand climate, upon those tropical valleys which he has leftbelow. This is the Mexican Vera Cruz railway.^ Let us pause a moment and gain a comprehensive ideaof the character of Mexicos configuration and climate. I. a o X o t A FIRST RECONNAISSANCE 5 ^It is to be recollected that Mexico, like other landsof Western America, is a country of relatively recentgeological birth. The form of the country is shares the topographical features of others of theAndine countries of America—of tropical lowlands andtemperate uplands, in which latter nearness to the heatof the Equator is offset by the coolness of the rarefiedair of high elevations above sea-level. This structure isthe dominant note of the scheme of Nature in Mexico—as it is in Peru and other similar countries—and theanthropo-geographical conditions are correspondinglymarked. ^ The region first passed is known as thetierra caliente, or hot lands. Its climatic limit extendsup the slopes of the Sierras to an elevation of some3,000 feet or more, embracing the lowlands, hot andhumid
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