The Pioche weekly record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1877-1900, 1881-03-19

Frank Leslie's illustrated News.


The line of Railway connecting Vera
Cruz with the City Of Mexico two hun.
dred and sixty miles-is very marvel OF
engineering, and, save that at Callao, in
Peru, surpasses anything in iron roads as
yet constructed. 1t ascends seven thou
sand six hundred feet-four thousand
seven hundred in twenty-five miles-it
passes from the hot to the temperate,
and FROM the latter to the cold, country;
it spans ravines, scales precipices, and
plunges through the bowels of mountains,
then up into the clouds it goes, and, in
the teeth of almost insurmountable diff
culties, skins gracefully past the cele-
brated shrine of the Virgin Of Gaudelupe
into the City of Mexico. To construct
this line it took thirty-s years, forty
Presidents, and one Emperor. On leav-
ing the depot at Vera Cruz, the line cuts
through the Notifications of the city,
crosses the Boulevard de Santiago, passes
in sight of the Alameda, then across the
lagoon Of Cocas, near the spot where the
Vera Cruzean defenders surrendered to
General Scott in l847, and, forming
short curve, runs straight to Tigerea,
nine and half miles, and one hundred
and six feet higher than Vera Cruz. The
country to this point is perfectly fiat,
showing now and then a strip of swamp,
at best but cheerless waste of sand, be-
traying the scantiest of vegetation.
Palms and bananas are conspicuous
by their absence, and low jungles or
patches of marsh, with a few deformed
cacti peering between rough masses of
rock and shingle, are all that tell the tale
of the tropics. Soledad, situated on the
eastern bank of the Rio Jamapa, is the
first place reached of any note. This
village of 200 inhabitants gives name to
the celebrated convention between the
invading powers and Mexico, signed on
the 10Th Of February by Generals Prim
and Doblado respectively. Paso del
Macho comes next, 1850 feet above the
level of the coast and still in a thirsty,
gritty country, sprinkled with gaunt
shapes of rock, and, save when the mo-
notony is relieved by river, refreshing
the cracking soil with its border Of sue
culent green, or an Indian village, rich
in unsymmetrical, downy rooted cabins
and copper-colored natives, attired in the
purest and scantiest of white, the scene
scarcely demands even so much as a
passing comment. This, however, is the
threshold Of the beauties, for aromatic
odors, borne by caressing breezes, salute
the nostrils; vegetation takes the place
of the dreary, desolate sand wastes, and
when the bridge of San Alego is reached,
the scenery, in all the voluptuousness Of
superb beauty, flashes upon the eye.
The bridge, 3lS feet long, springs from
out a bed Of verdure, so rich, SO varied,
so glowing, that it would serve for .
couch for Titania. Creepers in reds and
yellows and luminous greens and Tyrean
purple, cling amorously to the yielding
trees, and parasites, orchid and bromelia
beautiful as butterflies, seem futterinl
on the branches as if Just alighted.
The train now dashed past sugar-can'
and coffee plantations, banana and palm
groves, and other indwellers of the forest
until the lovely Chiquihuite is reached
where rift in the rock permits silve
thread to spin itself 70 feet sheer into
gloomy gorge. And now the famou
Barranca de Metlac, SO full of splendor
Of horror and so grandly Dantesuue, i
reached The bridge that spans tn
ravne is $50 feet long and 92 feet high
and is shaped in a curve from one side t.
the other. The Barranca rises at tn
foot of Orizava, finally disappearing a
the base of Chiquihuite Its narrowes
part measures 900 feet, its greatest dept
375 feet, while its borders, for steepness
have been compared to those of Niagar
near the Falls. Orizava, the most i'm
portant city on the road, is 50 miles fror
Vera Cruz, and is seated in the laps c
giant verdure-clad mountains, the extinc
cto Irtrr 0Nuyf,,
silence 1900 feet high. It was to Or
zava that Cortez, with his band Of de-
perados, hastened in the hope of lootin
its treasures, of which the Aztecs ga,
such glowing descriptions. A few shol
miles and the train arrives at the Baran,
del Infernillo, or Little Hell. The Infe
Milo is chasm whose depths can scare
be measured by the eye. The gaze dow
wards causes dizziness. Bridges spa
riffs, and CULTS, and yawning chasm
tunnels pierce opposing mountains ar
rocky promontories. There is no ira
of vegetation in the pass; and not a tire
not shrub, not fern relieves the shee
black walls of rock.
At Maltrata, which lies in valley su
rounded by towering precipices, the u
going train awaits the arrival of the ira
descending from the capital. One
holds it like a toy slowly passing alol
the verdure-clad submits of the mou
tains. Now it disappears behind il
ting promontory only to rcappear as
speeds across fairy-like bridge, aga
to become lost in tufted foliage. Then
zigzags becomes larger at every reappe.