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Rh passes, bounded on either side by fantastic mountain-peaks, has scarcely a sign of human habitation except the station-buildings along the track. Immense herds of cattle and numerous flocks of sheep are seen quietly feeding around some lake, as though they had been taking care of themselves for generations. This is not the case, however, for somewhere, hidden in a clump of trees or on a sightly hill, the comfortable mansion of some lordly proprietor (haciendado) arises surrounded by fields and orchards and a village of his peon herdsmen. Perhaps all the land which has been in sight for a whole day has been the property of one family for a century or more. Slavery was abolished when Mexican independence was secured, but the evil effects of the hacienda system—as this one-man power is called—remained.

Up to this time the towns and the hamlets of Mexico look very much as they have looked for the past three hundred years—bits of old Spain dropped into the New World soil amid the mouldering ruins of its ancient civilization. Forty miles north of the capital the Mexican Central Railroad passes Tula, one of the Toltec cities which was ruined before Cortez came. Here, among the fields near the famous pyramids of the sun and moon, thousands of little images are found by following the ploughman as he turns over the sod; they are supposed to be votive offerings once brought to this old Toltec shrine. No two faces are alike, but the sad expression worn now by the Indians is characteristic of these clay heads. Arrows, pottery and other remains show that this plain was in bygone ages the home of a large population.

Most of the interesting cities of Mexico are, or soon will be, reached by railroads. Monterey, one of the