The weekly chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Craig County, Okla.) 1905-1913, 1911-11-10


up into the clouds. Here millionaires
| by the hundred live. l saw over Wash
Iington City some years ago with its
splendid and magnificent buildings,
but these they don't trim inside with
silver and gold like the Spaniards and
Mexicans did two hundred and fifty
years ago and do now. In Guadalupe
Cathedral twenty tons of silver and
two million dollars worth of gold was
used in the trimming alone, TO say
nothing of the cast of the building. In
the back yard of this cathredal, up on
high hill, is magnificent cemetery.
where the wealthy Catholics make
payments of large sums of money to
be buried in most magnificent tombs
of marble or onyx If the last pay
ment is not paid at certain time the
body and coffin are taken out of the
tomb and the body is dumped into
deep dark hole in the ground and the
coffin is stored away in an old room,
| 1 pGCpCd NhlOuSu a llOlG III TIC nan
and saw several of these old empty
collins
The National Cathedral is one of the
largest and most magnificent in the
world, is was started in 1872 and was
70 years in building. Many Catholics
worked on it from youth to old age
and did not live to see it completed.
1t covers almost a city block and its
lofty spires seem almost to kiss the
skies-but I haven't space for more
of this.
At Esperanzo, one hundred and
fifty miles below the city, two noun
Itains have their heads stuck up into
the clouds and are capped the year
round with snow, while at their bases
oranges, bananas and other tropical
fruit grow and the farmers cultivate
corn, barley and other cereals. This
far everything is irrigated but from
here on it begins to rain and here you
begin to go down the mountain from
an elevation of eleven thousand feet
toward the Gulf of Mexico. There is
said to be some of the sublimest noun
tain scenery in the world. The vol
canoes and earthquakes some thou
sands of years ago seem to have turn
ed the earth topsy turvy, upside down
edgeways up and every other way
, imaginable In the narrow valleys be
tween these mountains are several
small mining towns and the city
Orezaba with population of $4,000
and the largest brewery and the larg
est cotton factory in Mexico.
But way down in the southern par
800 miles south east of the City O.
! Mexico is what / want to tell yoI
about. Someone has very appropri
ately called this "The Tropical Gardel
of Mexico" and he ought to have ad
ded "The most delightful climate ant
the richest land in the world" 1t il
1inndeed a tropical jungle where ninet,
inches of rain falls a year while WI
get forty-two here in eastern Okla
homa. | talked with the manager o
, Chicago sugar plantation who ha
been there ten years and he told m
THAT the highest temperature he hat
seen in that time was 81 and the low
T est was SO. In Oklahoma last sun
mer we had 1OS and the summer be
fore 112. The wet months are June
July and August. Our dry ones.
never dreamed that there was sue
land anywhere in the world laying ou
you might say and with such cl
mate. She land is held in large tract
by wealthy Mexicans and SPANS
families who hand it down from fathe
to son and they are loathe to sell. Th
tracts are so large that only capitalist
h. can buy them and they are now sci
ing them out to individuals of smalle
capital who are now colonizing then
The country is wonderfully fertile an
perhaps as rich as any in the worlt
adopted for the production of coffe
rubber, corn, sugar, henequin, coco
rice, cotton, tobacco, pineapple
lemons, lines, bananas and grapes an
20 the forests abound in many kinds
ut valuable woods. The country pr
sents unusual opportunities for raj
IL ing live stock, para, privilege ar
1e alfalfa grasses grow the year arour
ne and no wintering of stock has to
s. done.
to The jungles can be cleared by Me
le leans at an everage cost of about $6.'
ne per acre. They cut al the timber al
is brush down with it's abundant folia|
ot and let it dry a month or so and bul
i'll it off There they plant corn by Il
As sticking a stick in the ground and pl
h. ting the corn in the hole without fl
he ther work 1t makes from 80 to
"a bushels to the acre. They don't