ect is before, a
new atmosphere around me. The air is colder, but it is only the
temperature of spring. To me it feels chilly, coming so lately from the
hot lands below; and I fold my cloak closely around me, and ride on.

The view is open, for the _valu_ is almost treeless. The scene is no
longer wild. The earth has a cultivated aspect--an aspect of
civilisation: for these high plateaux--the _tierras templadas_--are the
seat of Mexican civilisation. Here are the towns--the great cities,
with their rich cathedrals and convents--here dwells the bulk of the
population. Here the rancho is built of unburnt bricks (_adobe's_)--a
mud cabin, often inclosed by hedges of the columnar cactus. Here are
whole villages of such huts, inhabited by the dark-skinned descendants
of the ancient Aztecs.

Fertile fields are around me. I behold the maguey of culture (_Agave
Americana_), in all its giant proportions. The lance-like blades of the
zea maize wave with a rich rustling in the breeze, for here that
beautiful plant grows in its greatest luxuriance. Immense plains are
covered with wheat, with capsicum, and the Spanish bean (_frijoles_).
My eyes are gladdened by the sight of roses climbing along the wall or
twining the portal. Here, too, the potato (_Solanum tuberosum_)
flourishes in its native soil; the pear and the pomegranate, the quince
and the apple, are seen in the orchard; and the cereals of the temperate
zone grow side by side with the _Cucurbitacece_ of the tropics.

I pass from one _valu_ into another, by crossing a low ridge of the
dividing mountains. Mark the change! A surface of green is before me,
reaching on all sides to the mountain foot; and upon this roam countless
herds, tended by mounted "vaqueros" (herdsmen).

I pass another ridge, and another _valid_ stretches before me. Again a
change! A desert of sand, over the surface of which move tall dun
columns of swirling dust, like the gigantic phantoms of some
spirit-world. I look into another _valle_, and behold shining waters--
lakes like inland seas--with sedgy shores and surrounded by green
savannas, and vast swamps covered with reeds and "tulares" (bulrush).

Still another plain, black with lava and the scoriae of extinct
volcanoes--black, treeless, and herbless--with not an atom of organic
matter upon its desolate surface.

Such are the features of the plateau-land--varied, and vast, and full of
wild interest.

I leave it and climb higher--