Page:Terry's guide to Mexico; handbook for travellers (IA terrysguidetomex00terr 0).pdf/11



Mexico lies contiguous to the United States, it is much less accurately known to Americans than its importance warrants. It is a land of striking contrasts and one with an artistic and an intellectual past, and it possesses a character and an individuality peculiarly interesting to the thoughtful traveller. It is easy of access, travelling is cheap, comfortable, and safe; English is widely spoken; and in point of picturesqueness and historical interest it has few equals. Those who travel the Republic for the first time are usually charmed with its physical beauty, its quaint cities, its almost perfect climate, the winsomeness of its azure skies and the amiability of its people.

The chief aim of the compiler of this Handbook has been to unite in one handy volume all the useful and most needed information pertaining to each subject, and to present it in as succinct and compact a form as possible. Substance, rather than verbiage, has been striven for, and grammatical exactness has been sometimes sacrificed to brevity, in order to make the book less bulky. But its trustworthiness has in no wise [sic] been impaired. It is the result of years of travel and personal observation and experience; the writer, in his declination of the country and its people and institutions, has tried to be just to all. The material interests of the traveller have in no single instance been sacrificed to the personal gain, prejudice, or selfish benefit of others.

A meritorious guide-book should save its cost for the purchaser the fist time it is put to use, and it is the hope that such may be the case with this. The sustained purpose has been to make it of immediate and permanent interest and value, and to save its possessor money and time. It contains a description