Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/66

62 tropical garden of our land. Let us make it commercially our own.

This commerce is increasing. One haciendado, or farmer, west of the city of Mexico, sends to market one hundred and thirty thousand cargoes of oranges annually from his plantation. A cargo is a donkey burden, and weighs three hundred pounds. This makes almost twenty thousand tons. I give this tale as it was given to me. If you ask whether or no it is true, I answer, after the country's fashion, Quien sabe? You must remember that a hacienda often covers many square leagues, so that if devoted exclusively to this fruit, it could produce a vast quantity. Whether that statement be true or not, it is true that the fruit is the best of its sort I ever tasted, and that it could control the markets of America.

The plains about Cordova are very rich, and bear all manner of fruits the year round. The scenery is as grand as the soil is fertile. Mountains thousands of feet high rise on the west and north, green at the base, bare and black at the summit, while just before you, as you look and move westward, stands forth that perfect Orizaba.

I never remembered hearing of this mountain before, though a cultivated fellow-traveler informed me it was frequently referred to by English and Spanish writers. This statement set the memories and the wits of the listeners a-running, and a mass of quotations, as well adapted to this market as the "quotations" of change are to it, were fished up from, the English poets. Probably a like knowledge, or ignorance, would have given like results from Calderon, The Cid, Lopez de Vega, and other like celebrities. For instance, had not Byron said,

 Orizaba looks on Marathon, And Marathon looks on the sea?"

and also told us,

 He that would Orizaba climb will find Its loftiest peak most clothed with mist and snow."