Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/78

 74 there, like the smile of the eye before it closes in sleep, and the mountain valley of Orizaba, with its petite perfection of a termination, disappears from our view, perhaps forever; for the stagecoach gives way to the rail-coach, and leaves this grand defile on a side-track. Its path is on the northern side of these hills, through a like but not more lovely valley.

This summit properly concludes the Tierras Calientes. They are of two classes. The low flat belt which lies along the sea, and which extends back some fifty miles to the base of the mountains, and the first terrace of the hills. This terrace is about three thousand feet above the sea. It seems to engirt the whole Mexican range. It extends from Monterey to Oaxaca. Pronounce this "Whahaca," and you will find it easier to handle than it looks. On this shelf, not quite half-way up to the level of the capital, is found the most fruitful section of the country. Here are perched along the eastern side of the country such towns as Monterey, Jalapa, Cordova, Orizaba, Cuernavaca, and Oaxaca. This is the best region for the production of the banana, orange, coffee, sugar, and other semi-tropical fruits. The cocoa, pine-apple, rubber-tree, and other more tropical products belong to the plains by the sea.

This terrace, too, contains the favorite gardens of the land. Its cities have been the winter retreats of the rich men of the capital ever since the country was occupied by the Europeans. Jalapa lies the lowest, being sixty miles north-west of Vera Cruz. It is said to possess the finest view of gulf and mountain of any city. It was on the high-road to the capital before the railroad took a more southern route. Cortez passed up its pass, and Scott followed. To-day it is on a side-track. Its jalap, pronounced as it is spelled, brings grief to those children whose doctors adhere to the old practice. Should you adopt its Spanish pronunciation of halapa, you would avoid that disagreeable reminder.

Cordova and Orizaba are on the same side-hill, and are to-day the favorite resort of the Mexican gentry, the latter especially. Here, too, are the repair shops of the railroad, so that quite an English-speaking population is growing up about this spot.