Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/424

410 families of the President, Señor Romero, and Mr. Nelson. At Apam, half-way between Mexico and Puebla, we breakfasted as well as we could have done at any railroad station in the United States.

At this point the country begins to change. Between Mexico and Apam the country resembles Lower California to a considerable degree; but from Apam to Puebla it has more the appearance of the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada, in the gold belt of California, though the red soil of the latter is lacking. The aloe fields now begin to give place to corn fields, and the country is productive, and densely populated.

We were now in the ancient State of Tlaxcala, in a plain situated among the grandest mountains of our continent. On one side Popocatapetl lifts his grand head, white with the snow of countless ages, and turbaned with white, fleecy vapors which cling, lovingly, around it, far into the deep, blue, cloudless sky. Next him stands his royal sister, "La Muger en Blanco" ("The woman in white,") and opposite stands the "Malinchi," named after Cortez's Indian mistress, a mighty mountain, but not snow-crowned, covered with deep green pine forests, up to within four or five thousand feet of its summit, and surrounded, with almost numberless villages, each with its white church, and rich, wide corn-fields.

The number of these hamlets, with large churches, is astonishing. It is said that there are no less than fifty-eight of them in the district known as the Malinchi, in the immediate vicinity of the mountain, and the entire country for hundreds of miles around is equally blessed. In spite of all this, the region has a villainous reputation as the favorite haunt of robbers and kidnappers.