Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/531

 Rh miles—has left the route through Parral and Durango and taken that through Jimenez, Lerdo, and Fresnillo. The reason of the change was the greater difficulty and expense of the original line. You get off at the crooked old town of Zacatecas or Guanajuato to inspect mines, at Aguas Calientes for its baths, and, if in the spring, its unique fair. At Lagos you make the diligence connection for Guadalajara. The interoceanic division of the railroad will reach this fine city—little touched as yet by modern influences, and having a central plaza as picturesque as a scene from grand opera—by April,'88. Of the arm of this division, traversing San Luis Potosi, there are also completed one hundred and six miles, from the port of Tampico westward.

The Mexican National Railway has built four hundred and ninety-seven miles of its main line, leaving but a moderate gap between its two sections, which those with a little taste for adventure can easily cross by stage-coach. It has also built two hundred and twenty-five miles on its branches. The charter of the Mexican Southern—General Grant's road has been suffered to lapse. The Morelos road has gone on some miles beyond Cuautla, to Yautepec, and a northern division to the neighborhood of Irolo. From Irolo a railway is now open to Pachuca, and the day of the joint-dislocating diligencia thither is past. President Diaz, in his latest annual message, announces that the International, from Piedras Negras, will reach Lerdo before the end of the year. Valuable coal mines have been opened, along the Sabinas River, on this line. The discovery is one of the first magnitude for Mexico, in which, up to this time, the dearth of coal has been complete. The Tehuantepec ship-railway project, set back by the recent death of Captain Eads, will perhaps not easily find another so enthusiastic a promoter. The remaining