Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/524

516 Here occurred a great fight between Porfirio Diaz and the French, in 1863, in which Diaz was badly whipped. The village, a few adobe huts with thatched roofs, seems to have suffered severely, the walls of some old buildings being well peppered with bullet-holes. We were reminded that we were in the earthquake region by the church bell being housed beneath a thatched tower by the side of the building. The vegetation here is tropical; narrow lanes run between banks of vines and bananas, and there is an immense field of sugar-cane in the valley below. Under the hills in the distance was pointed out to us

the town of Teotitlan del Camino, where, some twenty years ago, the Liberal General Mexia (whom we met in Tehuacan, a fine old gentleman) was defeated by the clerical party. This section fairly bristles with revolutionary points. It would seem that the people wished to utilize its worthless territory somehow, and so put up a fight at every available place. To reflect how the Mexicans have stamped over this desert region, for the express purpose of killing one another and kicking one another out, reminds one of the man who fenced in a stony piece of ground,—so that his cattle should not get in and starve to death.