The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1889-03-21

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and Three Hundred Years.
The Mexican National road passes
through . plateau, or rather valley,
lying between the two coast ranges of
mountains. Frequently the altitude
reaches five thousand feet, yet owing
to the proximity to the Gulf stream
and the tropics. the vegetation is q
constant source Of surprise to the
Northern tourist Giant cacti abound
every place. The specie known in the
North as the Spanish bayonet and soap
weed, which has no trunk whatever,
down here are immense trees, fre-
quently two feet in diameter and twen-
ty feet high. The same is also true OF
small pear cactus OF our Northern
plains. Semi-tropical fruits and plants
flourish at an altitude OF seven thou
sand feet.
Having passed Saltillo, we entered
the region abounding with the magueys
plant which is indigenous to Mexico,
and from which the natives make the
popular drink called pulque. This Is
milky, yeast-smelling drink, which
few OF our party had the courage to
taste, yet which as drink holds the
same relation to Mexican that lager
beer does to a German. When distilled
the liquid Is called mescal. A very
little Of this clear and harmless-look-
ing beverage will completely floor an
American who has been long Injured to
strong drink. The maguey plant is
extensively cultivated, and every
morning there is a train-load OF the
pulque run to the City Of Mexico,
where the poor buy 1t for about three
cents pint, and drink it without mod
GRAFTON. -
The interior Of Mexico is by no
means a newly-settled country. All
along the route the stranger is sur
prised to find that each little town he
enters was settled by the Spaniards
from two to three hundred years ago.
The buildings are all Of stone or adobe,
and built with open courts and along
very narrow paved streets. Every
where almost half the wealth of the
towns is put in churches, and the old
Spanish priests seemed to have 80
placed these churches up and down the
valleys that at no place could the mis-
cradle inhabitants be beyond the reach
of the tones of chapel bell calling
them to mass and confession. Every
three or four miles we would pass one
of these chapels, which has been a
place Of worship for from five to eight
generations. Many are now either part
or wholly in ruins, with only the stone
towers reaching heavenward, while a
mass of moss and vine-covered walls
are slowly yielding to the corrodings
of time. How strangely in harmony
with the decay Of the Spanish civiliza-
tion which was transplanted along
these valleys. Three centuries have
entirely changed the people. In
mingling with the native Aztecs, the
Spaniard has lost much Of his identity.
and to-day all over the rural provinces
the Mexican partakes more Of the
aboriginal stock than of the engrafted
scion. He is incapable Of reproducing
the architecture and carvings and
jointings Of his ancestors; lacking in
energy and inventive genius; ignorant
Of the meanest comfort Of civilization;
always filthy, yet ever blindly devout.
He may lie, steal, rob or even murder;
he may forge friend, neglect and
outrage the most sacred ties that bind
human souls together, and commit
every crime known to the calendar,
but forget his prayers--never. He
closes day Of carousing and crime by
devoutly crossing himself and lying
down to peaceful slumbers. Cor. Dem
yer Republican.