Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/348

340 its master from some stream to the home. In May there are frequent showers, and by September tiny rivulets become raging torrents leaping from shelf to shelf of their rocky beds through some great crevice in the mountains.

On the Pacific coast the steep sides of the Cordilleras are cleft by long valleys running east and west and opening

out directly on the sea. The surf often thunders up to the very mouth of the deep mountain-glen till the green of its perpetual spring is moistened by the spray. A large part of Mexico has been denuded of its forests. The Spaniards neglected the system of irrigation used by the more provident natives, and many parts of the country once profitably cultivated are now lying