inside finish. These Indians
cultivate the land in common, and when the crop is gathered, it is
divided after recognized laws of their own. Irrigation is the sole means
of fertilizing, and it seems to be all the soil requires. They plough
with oxen, using a crooked stick, which method, several times alluded
to, is not so very surprising when we remember that the Egyptian fellah
uses a similar instrument to-day, and irrigates the soil by means of
buckets worked by hand. The women of the group of whom we are speaking
were bareheaded, and wore their long, straight, black hair in braids
hanging down over their naked shoulders, their arms being bare, and also
their legs to the knee. A loose cotton tunic and short petticoat formed
their dress. The men wore straw hats with tall crowns, their broad brims
throwing their swarthy faces into deep shadow. Unbleached cotton shirts
and drawers of the same reaching to the knees completed the costume.
Some wore leather sandals, but most were barefooted. There were a few
children among them, all slung to the mothers' backs, and quite naked.

Between the lofty peak of Orizaba and the Cofre de Perote, there exists
many traces of a very numerous native population, who must have occupied
the country long previous to the advent of the Spanish conquerors. Not
even tradition tells us anything about this locality, which is
abundantly supplied with water, is fertile to an extraordinary degree,
and possesses a healthy climate. That extensive and intelligent
cultivation of the soil was carried on here at some period of the past
is clearly shown by numberless remains. The fact that oak trees four
feet in diameter are found growing over the stone foundations of ruined
dwellings proves that many centuries have passed since the population
disappeared. The remains of the dwellings are all of stone laid without
mortar, arranged in streets, or in groups. A series of pyramids of stone
are also found here, the largest of which is over fifty feet in height,
and the smallest not over ten or twelve feet, the last seeming to have
been designed for tombs. Several of these have been opened and found to
contain skeletons and elaborately ornamented burial urns. The locality
referred to is the eastern slope of the sierra towards the coast between
Orizaba and Jalapa.

Our next objective point is the city of Mexico, to reach which from
Jalapa we return to Vera Cruz, though not necessarily, taking the
railway from the