Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/434

426 The Mexican Central runs through the centre of the table land, which already supports a population of nearly four million inhabitants. The following is a list of the cities upon the line, not including those of less than eight thousand inhabitants, with their population, the State capitals being marked with stars.

In round numbers, probably a million.

The feasibility of this vast project has already been demonstrated, in the almost triumphal advance from the valley of Mexico to the valley of the Rio Grande. Of the region traversed Humboldt says: "So regular is the great plateau (formed exclusively by the broad, undulating, flattened crest of the Mexican Andes), and so gentle are the slopes where depressions occur, that the journey from Mexico to Santa Fé, New Mexico (about twelve hundred miles), might be performed in a four-wheeled vehicle. . . . . The two extremities, Mexico City and Santa Fé,