Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/480

464 In many cities of Mexico gambling is now prohibited, and, as with us, can only be carried on by stealth; but in the smaller towns throughout the country, it is not exactly the vice but the prevailing misfortune of the people.

Procuring saddle-horses in Orizaba, a number of our party with several gentlemen from the city, rode out through fine fields of sugar-cane and orange and banana plantations, a distance of three miles to the Falls of the Rincon Grande. The Rio de Agua Blanco, a deep, swift-running, pure, fresh-water stream, comes rushing, like the Truckee in Nevada, down from the mountains on the eastward of the city, running most of the distance through a deep and very picturesque cañon.

At the point where the falls commence, the stream divides, one half running on down the cañon, and the other running out on the top of the mesa, or table-rock of lava, which forms one side of the ravine, then turning, and falling in many smaller streams over the precipitous face of the cliff into the bottom of the cañon, and in a cloud of spray, mingling with the waters of the main stream below.

The perpendicular fall, itself, cannot exceed fifty feet at this point, but in outline it is a miniature Niagara, and the wealth of tropical verdure and flowers which surround it, as the gold and enamel surround the diamond when it leaves the cunning hand of the jeweler, makes it a gem of exquisite beauty, such as can never be seen in colder climes than this. The trees all around are covered with long, grey moss, and numberless parasites, all of which bear gorgeous-colored flowers. Some of these flowers are in shape like an ear of corn, six to