Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/31

Rh line, with wheat and other northern cereals. Below these, in richer variety, were the flowers and fruits of the temperate zone. Maize, which is found everywhere in Mexico, attains its most luxuriant growth in this milder climate. The cactus family grows in almost endless forms, the maguey with its rich yellow clusters of flowers, and other trees and plants native to this soil.

The mountains are often cleft by deep ravines in which Nature revels in moisture and warmth and brings out her richest vegetable treasures. Magnificent trees rooted far below lift their heads into the sunshine, and flowering vines clamber everywhere in a wilderness of beauty and fragrance. Gay butterflies glance in the sunlight like blossoms on the wing. Air and earth are alive with myriad insects, while birds as rich in flashing plumage as any gem in all the mines of Mexico enliven the woods with songs unheard in other tropical countries. Some