Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/257

 Rh We look down on the sea of glass, mingled with fire, which blazes over half the valley; the sea of glass, mingled with green, which covers more beautifully the other portions. The majestic snowpeaks shine forth their clearest and brightest. A Mexican sawmill, off the road, but near the city, affords a quaint sight. The Spaniards stripped the plains and nearer mountains of wood, and so there is no need to-day of a more expensive mill than the old-fashioned handsaw pulled lazily along an occasional log. Our steam saw-mill rapacity will soon effect a like result in our own land. Popocatepetl looks quietly down on the quiet sawyer.



Down we hasten to the level plains and straight roads; past Cherubusco, a flat field with a big church, around which the battle raged; past the beautiful hacienda of San Juan de Dios (how pious are these names!), where men are planting corn in long rows, dressed all in white as snowy as the White Woman above them, a quaint procession—"there are forty hoeing like one"—over the long, shaded, half-well-roaded paseos, into busy burning Mexico. The city shows off best on this entrance, stretching wide and churchly along the open space. We have had all extremes in half a dozen hours. Our Garden in Eden is behind us. Our northern and better paradise before. Let us go.