Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/228

220 six miles from the coast, where there is a restaurant, and here a branch line leaves the main line for the city of Puebla. At Soltepec, seventy miles from Mexico, we are at an elevation above the sea of 8,224 feet; but, beyond, the plain gradually declines to the Mexican valley.

We have long been in the region made famous for the maguey (Agave Americana), and at the station of Apam, fifty-eight miles from Mexico, are in the centre of the "pulque country." Fields of wheat and barley took the place of tobacco and sugar-cane many a mile back, but these in turn yield to that wonderful native of the Mexican plateau. Immense fields stretch away on every side, unbounded by walls, but crossed by a thousand rows of the maguey, and in the distance gleam the white walls of the haciendas, fort-like structures with pierced and battlemented walls, that pertain to domains from six to ten leagues in extent. Droves of horses and herds of cattle roam the pastures in the intervales, and blue lakes sparkle, in the rainy season, where in the dry months all is parched and brown.

The only remaining station of historic importance is Otumba, and its position has been indicated long before we reach it; for two miles away rise those gigantic pyramids of the Sun and Moon. Gliding down the fertile plains, past the shadowy pyramids, along the borders of the shallow lake, Tezcoco, under the brown hills of Guadalupe, we are at last fairly within the great valley of Anahuac, the original centre of Mexican civilization, and there before us lies the beautiful city, capital of Mexico, bathed perchance in the golden beams of the departing sun. And into this valley, the former theatre of strife between a multitude of peoples, towards which in years past the eyes of the world have been turned in amazement, we enter by the train, and roll into the suburbs of the city.