Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/347

Rh There are immense districts, however, where such foreign wares are still unknown. One has only to find one of these out-of-the-way places to see husbandry carried on as it was when Joseph was Pharaoh's overseer in Egypt. If by chance an American plough makes its way there, it is apt to be broken up for its iron, since that can be turned into cash, while the farmer plods contentedly on in the rut his ancestors made five hundred years ago. But the lower classes in town and in city have been aroused to new life. Those who used to beg or to steal because they had nothing else to do can now earn an honest living with pickaxe and spade along the route of some of the new railroads. There has been a very perceptible change not only in arrests for crime, but m that turbulent spirit which found vent in endless revolutions. It was estimated that in 1883 more than fifty thousand Mexicans were at work digging, felling trees, building bridges and cutting roads through forests and over mountains. Many of these had never before done a full day's work. At least six railroads are now heading toward as many cities on the Pacific shore of Mexico, while the country is crossed by half that number of transcontinental roads.

There are but two seasons in Mexico—the wet season and the dry season. The mean temperature in January is 52.5° Fahrenheit; in July, 65.3°. From October to May there is but little rain. As the heavy floods of autumn are left behind the streams then swollen by freshets dry up, the meadows look parched, the shrubs wither and on the high plateau clouds of dust fill the air. In some parts of the country water becomes scarce, even for culinary purposes, and the precious fluid may be seen traveling in barrels behind the donkey and