The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-08-30

raised. / passed through thousands of
acres of coffee land, as yet undeyeloped. in
the trip / took from Mexico City down
through Orizaba and Cordova, and found
cofiee growing wild in my trip from San
LUIS Potosi to Tampico, which took YES
terday. / met at Jalapa New Orleans
coffee merchant, Mr.. Westfeldt, who prac-
ticaliy controls the coffee export of Mexico.
He tells me that the best coffee in the
country comes from the west coast and
that there are plantations in Vera Cruz
which pay pront of from SAC, 600 to $50, 600
year. 1t takes about i've years to make
coffee plantation, but it is no hard mat
ter and the plants are practically left to
themselves. They are started in sprouts.
planted in rows nine feet apart and they
grow to be bushes about ten feet high
and produce at the fifth year. Bananas
are planted between the rows of bushes to
shade them, and there is a profit from the
banana orchard as well as from the coffee.
After your plantation is In bearing each
tree will produce from one to two pounds,
and 1t costs about cents pound to pick
1t and get it to the market. 1t sells for 20
cents pound, and You can count on II or
Is cents pound clear profit every year.
Coffee orchards in bearing are hard to buy,
and they bring from 500 to 500 and $500
per acre. | am told that this unused
land can be bought for 81 per acre, and
there is no doubt but that portion of it
would be sold in big lots for much less.
Ine coffee export of Mexico is steadily in
creasing, and the United States consumes
the most of it. The prospect is that the
American proprietors will increase, as the
plantations require little attention after
once well started, and by spending
month or SO in Mexico each year one
could attend to the gathering of his crop
and draw his profits regularly.
yUCATAN Ann TARASCO
The northeast horn of Mexico is one of
the least explored parts of the country.
STU have met great many Americans
In Mexico who have visited it, and who
have explored its outer edges. Take Yu-
catan! 1t is as big as South Carolina and
1t is about four times as big as Massachu-
setts. 1t contains some of the richest soil
IN the world, but only small part of it is
cultivated. The whole country has only
$4,000 people and the most of these are
pure Indians. They dress differently from
the people of this part of Mexico, wear the
the whltest of white cottons and are no.
toriously clean. The whole country lives
OH OF the hemp plant and it sells 100000
worth OF the dried leaves of this every
year. Its capital is place called Marida,
town OF $1,000 people, lying twenty-five
miles from the Cuff of Mexico and con-
nected with the shore by railroad The
chief money used is the American dollar,
and the banking of the town is done in
connection with New York and you buv
drafts on New York instead of on Mexico.
Inc large part of the interior of Yucatan
Is jungle. This is inhabited by wild In
dams, who scare the people of the capital
by threatening to come down and take it,
but who stick pretty well to their own
camp fires.
THE RUINS OF SOUTH MEXICO.
The ruins of Gucatan and the southern
part OF Mexico are among the most WON
derful in the world. Yucatan was at the
time OF the conquest about the most thickly
populated part of the North American
continent, and there are now sixty ruined
cities, which date back to the DAYS of the
Aztecs. There are undoubtedly other vast
cities in the jungles of Yucatan, Tabasco
and Campeachy which are awaiting dis
coyery, and there is ruined palace in Ia
basco which covers more than acre and
which stands on platform of stone forty
feet high. This palace is in the ruined
city OF Palenque, and near this is another
ruined city, which was named after Pierre
Lorillard, of New York, who furnished
the funds which brought about its discov-
cry. Within 100 miles of Marida there are
hundreds of ruins containing magnificent
CARVINGS, TIE TcllidiHS Oi great temples. of
palaces and of sculptures, showing that
the Toltecs had high state of civilization.
And about the City of Mexico itself You
find many ruins which show YOU how
little we know about these cuI-
tured Indians of the past. | Wis
tied near Puebla the ruins of the
pyramid of Cholula. This pyramid had a
base more tnan three time as big as that
of the great pyramid which stands in the
desert near Cairo today. Each of its sides
was over thousand feet in length and it
was hundred and seventy-seyen feet
high. Its top had an area OF more than
an acre and it was undoubtedly the big
gest thing of the kind ever built by man.
1t was an old structure when Cortes came
into the country and it is now merely a
vast mound with the brick walls here and
there showing out to mark its terraces,
There is dirty little church on its ton
where it is said that Cortes built one. and a
little Mexican city lies at its base.
street car ploughs its way through one
side of it, and big part of it has been
torn down and the space covered bv it
turned into corn field. In going into
Mexico City from Puebla you pass the
pyramids of the Sun and the Moon. which
were places of worship when Montezuma
lived and which today are great mounds of
earth, out 150 and the other more than oO1
feet high. About these pyramids in oIden
times there were other pyramids and it is
sand that holy city existed about them in
times past. There was city of150, 900 about
the city of Choiula. and it was sort of
Mecca for theAztecs. Within few miles of
Zacatecas there is another famous rnin
and in every part of this country there are
unknown fields TO be discovered for the
ethnologist and student as well as for the
business man and the capitalist.
THE FUTURE SEAPORT OF MEXICO.
write this letter at Tampico, which is
bound to be the great seaport of the
Mexico of the future. This place has one
of the finest harbors in the world and
were it not for the bar in the front Of il
you could anchor all the navies of Eurone
in the mouth of the Panuco river. This
bar is TO be removed by means of ietties
and Colonel Corthell, the man who was
the first lieutenant of James 3. Eads in
making the ietties of the Mississippi. il in
charge of this work. 1t is a greater work
than was the making of the Mississinni
jetties, and il is to cost millions of dollars
The jetties begin at the mouth of the
Panuca river and run for 200 feet right
out into the sea. They are 1000 feet wide
at the top and are walls OF stone and
wicker mats, which will become, by the
drifting in of the sand, solid and perman-
ent. When they have become consoli-
dated theX will be enclosed in a mass of
heavy coIfcrete, and they will be as strong
as science can make them. The Panuco
river Is one of the biggest rivers
in Mexico; IL is about LOO feet wide and
mas Tor miles from this point an average
depth eli thirty-three feet. Its waters flow
into the sea at the rate OF 900 cubic feet
a second, and they go at such a rate that
when confined in such narrow channel
they will carry rho sand bar far our ipro