The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-07-19
IN PRETTY JALAPA.
Beautiful Mexican Girls Up
Among the Clouds.
FLORA OF THE MOUNTAINS.
Orchards of Orchids-Santa Annals Farm
Indians of the Hot Lands and
Their Curious Houses.

VERA Cruz, July 49, Especial Core
spondence. l-Seventy-two miles on a street
car. A mad, wild race over hill and val
ley down the Mexican mountains. A gal
lop through great forests and dense jun
giles. A ride through orange groves and
pineapple beds. A jump from the regions
where the coffee grows, through myriads
OF trees loaded with orchids, out into
groves of palms and on into the rank trop-
zeal vegetation of the Mexican hot land.
A ride with strange drivers, who remind
you of Italian brigands. A ride through
strange people, who live in strange
houses, and who look as queer as though
they came from the other side of the
world. Such is may idea of the trip /
took yesterday morning in coming from
Jalapa to the little village from whence
you take the railroad for Vera Cruz. 1t
was ride over the longest street car line
in the world. 1t was ride through some
of the most picturesque country of the
American continent, and it is ride
which, within a month. will have passed
from the possibilities of travel.
JALAPA THE BEAUTIFUL.
Away up in the mountains, within sight
of the snow-topped volcano 0rizaba, sur
rounded by the richest of lands, lies one of
the wealthiest and most beautiful cities of
Mexico. This is the old, old town of Ja-
lapa. There is no place in Switzerland
more beautifully located, and you will find
no town on the continent more pictur-
esque. 1t lies right in the mountains.
The clouds nestle among the hills about it,
and every street climbs up and down. Civ
ing a series of beautiful views and vistas.
The houses are all of one or two stories.
They are of stucco, and they look as
though they had all been finished but
year or so ago. They have long, low, over
hanging roofs of red tile, and these roofs
jut out about yard and a half over the
street, and the rafters and the inside of
the roofs are painted delicate, light blue.
Below this blue comes the brown. drab or
yellow Of the wall of the house, which
goes down to dado or dark red, which
borders the street. The houses have great
windows covered with iron bars, and out of
these look the beautiful girls for which
Jalapa is famous. They have blue eyes,
dark hair and eyebrows. and their COM
plexions are of the richest cream. Not
few of them have rosy cheeks, and /
caught many beautiful picture with my
Il
The ground floors of the houses are level
with the sidewalks, and you can look
through these windows right into the
houses and see the red-tiled floors, the
walls frescoed in gay colors, and the gar
den of tropical plants which forms the
courtyard about which the house is built.
The people do not seem to resent inspec-
ton, and the fair senoritas laughed whenI
pointed the camera at them, and found
them kinder and bettrer looking than the
people of any other part of the Mexican
republic. The Mexicans themselves have
a proverb concerning them. They say
that Jalapa is part of heaven let down
to earth. and the proverb is Las Jalapenas
SON haiaguenas," or, ''Bewitching and al
Turing are the women of Jalapa."
The town is in the center of the richest
of the coffee regions of Mexico. 1t has
about IA 600 people, and it is the most old
fashioned city of this old-fashioned coun-
try. Its trade is very great, however, and
for twelve years the only connection it had
with the seaport has been this street car
line which runs from it to Vera Cruz.
Now the Inter-Oceanic railroad of Mexico
runs from the capital to it, 1t was opened
within few weeks, and within a few
weeks more the line from Jalapa to Vera
Cruz will be completed and the tramway
will be given up. 1t was thought that the
grades were too steep to be mounted by
steam, but modern invention and engi-
neering has proved the mistake. The
iron horse within a month at the
lates will supersede the mules, and
the crack of the whip of the Mexican
Jehu will be lost in the shrek of the mar
row gauge locomotive. The cars leave
Jalapa early in the morning. They
are first and second-class, and the only
Il, hotxr fh0rr fa hat ha
class train has better cushioned seats and
less passengers than the second-class.
Each car contains six seats, is about fifteen
feet long and open at the sides. The seats
run right across the cars instead of up and
down, and the driver stands on the front
platform with four lines in his hand, by
which ne guides four of the liyeliest mules
you will find in Mexico. He drives them
at gallop all the time, and we change
mules every hour and go on a dead run up
hill and down. Let me give you picture
of our ride. We paid our fare at the depot.
1t was a little over six dollars, and as we
took our seats in the car a slight
rain began to fall. We drove tIrst
through the long, marrow streets of Jalapa,
whose doors and windows were filled with
faces smiling kind farewell, and then on
out into the country. The road was that
on which Cortez marched with his troops,
and it is the same road over which the
American army came under General scott
when it captured Mexico City. Near
Jalapa it is wide and rugged and paved
with cobblestones. A thick vegetation
grows at each side of it. and the stone
fences which line it are as moss-grown as
those about Cork and Killarney, in South
Ireland. The fields back Of these are full
of the signs of prosperity. The grass is as
green as that of England and il covers the
hills on every side for miles. There are
many fields of corn and this is in tassel,
and | see roasting ears bursting forth,
such as we have in August. Here is
a man blowing, and a cut in the field
shows me that the rich brown loan is from
six to eight feet deep, and Mexican looks
out from his big sombrero on the seat in
front of me and tells me this land is worth
as much as suburban lots about Washing
ton. II is curious to note the stages
of the same crop in almost the same fields.
Here is a field Of corn in ear, and next 10
ii you see another with sprouts just shoot
ing from the ground. This ground will
produce two crops of corn a year and it
never needs fertilization. Now We pass a
coffee plantation. The glossy bushes are
shaded by tall, wide-leaved banana plants,
whose heads bend over. and upon
many of which there are long
long brown blossoms or buds as big as an
ear Of corn. The coffee bushes are full of
ripe, red berries and the fiora and the
trees are wonderfully beautiful.
ORCHIDS BY THE MILLION.
fau miles from IaIana we on into a