Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/226

 206 at this writing which came from Water Street, in New York. This agent had taken his last order (having canvassed the little store-keepers in the plaza under my own view, as if they had been those of Kalamazoo, Aurora, or Freeport), and was awaiting the sailing of his steamer from Vera Cruz. Having nothing more to do, he entered into the examination of manners and customs for their own sake with a certain zest, though perhaps comprehending for the first time that such things could be worth anybody's notice.

Amatlan is the richest Indian village in—well, one of the richest of Indian villages. Its plantations of pine-apples are the finest in the state of Vera Cruz, to which all this territory from Orizaba down belongs, Orizaba being its capital. The pines grow about sixteen inches in height, and should last ten years. They are set in narrow lines, and the general aspect of the field from a little distance is that of large sedge-grass. You will buy three of them sometimes for a tlaco, one cent and a half. We met natives driving donkey-loads of them to market. There were some fields of tobacco, of fine quality, in flower. The Peak of Orizaba is magnificently seen from all this district. It is lovelier and bolder than at first upon familiar acquaintance. Church, the painter, finds the preferable point of view farther up the railroad, using the wild gorges of Fortin as a foreground. The village proved to be composed chiefly of wooden and cane huts, shingled or thatched, and the population to be exclusively Indian. They do not wish any others to join them. They display everywhere the same clannish disposition. If persons of European origin who might come to remain could not be got rid of by churlishness, it is thought that severer means would be resorted to.

The Indian race, as a rule, is patient and untiring in