The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1896-02-27
LETTER FROM MEXICO.
JUDGE CLARK'S IMPRESSIONS OF THAT
COUNTRY.


JUDGE CLARK'S IMPRESSIONS OF THAT
COUNTRY.
he Writes of the Scenery and Com
pares 1t With that ofltaIy, Scotland
and Other Parts of Continental
Europe-Effects of Legislation in
Mexico and the United States Con.
trasted.
The following lines written by Hon
Walter Clark, Associate Justice Of the
Supreme Court of North Carolina, dur.
ing his recent trip to Mexico, will be
read with interest by our readers We
are sure. We take it from the Fayette-
vile Observer, to whose editor it was
written as appears below:
JALAPA, II Wonero de 1896.
MAJOR E. J. HALE,
4Kny Sr mic y dIstinguido amigo:
After travelling through the north
ern part of the "United States ofMer-
ito," and spending several days in the
Federal capital went down to Vera
Cruz by the Mexican railroad, (com-
monty known as the "Queen's Own"
having been built with British money!
and am returning by the Interoceanic.
have stopped over here to see the
coffee plantations, or haciendas. The
coffee, as you know, grows on trees
which bear fruit very much resembling
cherries, each cherry containing two
seeds which are the coffee grains. The
business is very profitable, as raising
coffee costs about 9 cents on a silver
basis, and it is sold in San Francisco
at 22H cents in gold, this, owing to
the legislation by which in the United
States we have arti6cially doubled the
value of the dollar, is about Al cents in
silver. The coffee opens continuously
the year round, and the coffee tree,
like all Others here, is an evergreen.
The scenery on both these roads, in
passing from the table lands of Cen
,ral Mexico down to the Terra CAL
tente or tropical low lands of the Gulf
coast, is grand beyond description.
Above the little village of Maltrata,
the train crawls around the side of an
almost perpendicular precipice $500
feet above the village, into which we
could almost toss biscuit, and the
churches and houses look like toy
houses, and the people like pigmies,
and the tack, by many devious turn
and twist, passes then over twelve
miles before we get down to the viii
lage. Take the scenery along these
two railroads as they descend and l
have seen nothing TO equal it it in the
Highlands of Scotland, in~the Swiss
Alps or in California. 1t is worth a
trip here TO see. For instance, / stop
ped over one afternoon in the little
town of Drizaba, half way down the
mountain. From one window ofmy
room could see the grand summit of
Orizaba, over $4,000 feet high. the
tallest peak on the continent (and a
full half mile higher than Mount
Blanc, the highest point in Europe)
his head covered with SHOWS that never
melt, while around me the roses we're
blooming, and the strawberries were
ripening in the open air, and the little
children were playing barefooted in
the streets; aud far to the left, reich
ed out at ouI feet the vast plain of the
fer,lle 2Ie,ra CaHente where the
sugar cane Was .'een, and the corn
tasseling, and tue mango trees and
the banans w.r swaying in the breeze
down to wher> 90 miles away could
be seen the line ot the Gulf and the
white houses of Veru Cruz and the
big ocean steamers resting like ducks
on the waters, and seemingly, even in
this clear air, no larger. So looked
Italy, "wi,h her fatal gift of beauty"
when she lay smiling at the foot Of her
mountains when God and Vandal
gazed down upon her, and when Han
MI al and Napoleon poured down their
troops from the Alpine passes.
1t is strange Americans should 60 TO
Europe when here close at hand is far
more magnificent scenery. Travel
offers more novelty here in every way
than in the beaten pathways of Ger
many and Switzerland, and the ex-
penses not one..third as much.
Jalapa is one of the oldest and
quaintest towns in the Republic, bit
of the 10th century clingingto the side
of the mountaineering modern
save the railroad, the electric igh,s
and street cars, and the hotel which
has all the comforts of New York,
for there is not chimney, and never
any need of one, and the house, like
all hotels and private residences here
abouts, is built around an open court
yard where the fountain plays and
flowers and roses are blooming. Jalapa
has a medicinal reminisCence as /aiat
came from hence, but you would
never know it here, for the people call
their city Hakapper. 1t is indeed
very ancient. When Cortez, SIC
years ago, "a full hundred years, b,
the way, before the Pilgrims landed
at Plymouth Rock) made that dare
devil march with 400 men to take the
City of Mexico with lis quarter Of q
million of people and took it, he passed
through Jalapa, and it was already
then a city. The two principa
churches here were built by the Span
iards long years before Sir Walte
Raleigh made the first attempt at ar
English settlement on this Contll en-
; at Roanoke Island. And 4o year
ago Jalapa saw another army come VI
from the seaward, from the white walls
! i