The Opelousas courier., 1889-03-23
N CENTRAL MEXICO.
A Country That Has Been Settled fof Two
and Three Hundred Years.

and Three Hundred Years.
The Mexican National road passes
through a plateau, or rather a 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 a
constant source of surprise to the
Northern tourists 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, fire.
~uuently two feet in diameter and TWEEN
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 eve thou
sand feet.
Having passed Saltillo, we entered
the region Astounding with the maguey
plant, which is indigenous to Mexico,
and from which the natives make the
popular drink called pulque. This is
a milky, yeast-smelling drink, which
few of our party had the courage to
taste. vet which as a drink holds the
same relation to a 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 it for about three
cents a pint, and drink it without mod
GRAFTON.
The interior of Mexico is by nc
means q 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 ole
Spanish priests seemed to have sc
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 a chapel bell calling
them to mass and confession. Every
three or four miles we would pass one
of these chapels, which has been {
place of worship for from five to eight
generations. Many are now either par
or wholly in ruins, with only the stone
towers reaching heavenward, while
mass of moss and ~vine-covered WALL
are slowly yielding to the %corroding
of time. How strangely in harmon,
with the decay of the Spanish c~iviliza
ton which was transplanted along
these valleys. Three centuries hav'
entirely changed the people. Il
mingling with the native Aztecs, tn
Spaniard has lost much of his identity
, and to-day all over the rural province
the Mexican partakes more of tn
aboriginal stock than of the engrafte
scion. He is incapable of reproducin.
= the architecture and carvings an
jointings of his ancestors; lacking i
energy and inventive genius; ignoran
of the meanest comfort of civilization
! always filthy, yet eve blindly devou'
He may lie. steal, rob or even murder
> he may forge a friend, neglect an
: outrage the most sacred ties that bin
) human souls together, and COMM
every crime known to the calendar
but forget his prayers-never. ID
closes a day of %carousing and crime b
8 devoutly crossing himself and lynn
. down to peaceful slumbers. Cor. Der
, yer Republican.