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128 The State of Guerrero is in a somewhat backward condition, and is populated largely by Indians and Mestizos, who number about 500,000. These are, for the most part, of a very ignorant and degraded type. The resources of the State, however, are almost unequalled; and it has a port, Acapulco, which should greatly assist in its development if more railway lines than the present single one converged upon it. It is mountainous, with a low coastal plain, the hinterland being cut up into narrow valleys, rich with timber but difficult of penetration. The coastal zone is hot, and life can be supported much better by Europeans in the tierras templadas of the mountain region. Coffee, cotton, tobacco, and cereals can be grown, but mining is undeveloped. However, the State is scarcely a white man's country, at least not until it is freed from the malarial conditions which at present exist near the coast. Opals of great beauty are mined at Guerrero, as well as gold and silver. The unfortunate circumstance connected with this State is that it is to a great extent cut off by the Sierras Madre from the rest of Mexico. Many schemes have been formed to connect it by rail with the interior of the country, but the topographical difficulties in the way are enormous, and it does not look as if they would be readily overcome. The country has other drawbacks, for the excitements of earthquake are on occasion added to those lesser annoyances which afflict all Europeans in the hot lands of Mexico the—tarantula, the mosquito, the centipede, and the scorpion.

Puebla is for the most part populated by civilised Indians, who number rather more than 1,000,000 souls. This State possesses some of the wildest and most magnificent mountain scenery in the Republic, for here the far-famed Orizaba, Popocatepetl ("Smoking Mountain"), and Ixtaccihuatl ("White Woman") raise their snow-covered summits to the turquoise sky. The climate is a temperate and healthy one, with an abundant