The Vinita daily chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1902-1913, 1911-11-01

so many want TO know in detail about
the country, have decided to write a
short account OF things and condi-
tions there as I saw them. VIII make
my statements as brief and to the
point as possible as a whole news
paper would not hold half that is TO
be seen on a trip to this. one of the
most interesting countries in the
world. The history of the country is
intensely interesting. but cannot
touch on that in a short letter Will
deal with the present and future. AS
to the revolution it is all over with.
Madero is very popular with the
masses and there being little proba-
bility of there being further trouble.
Madero and +wo members of his com
ing cabinet last week issued state
ments to the Mexican newspapers vel
coming tourists to Mexico and pre-
desting unprecedented prosperity for
the country in the future. There are
thousands of Americans, English,
Canadians and other foreigners in the
country now and they seem to have
little apprehension of anothr upris-
ineg.
The first two or three hundred
miles of the country is only a level
desert of cactus and mesquite brush,
then all the way to the City of Mex
leo is mountains and cactus with some
large cities and mining towns along
the railway.
The City of Mexico, one of the most
beautiful, richest and historic of the
world, with a population of 100000, is
built a way up on the mountains,
7,471 feet above the sea level and yet
is built on the bottom of what was once
a lake And still all around the coun-
try you see mountains sticking a way
up into the clouds. Here millionaires
by the hundred live. | saw over Wash
ington City some years ago with it's
splendid and magnificent buildings,
but these they don't trim inside with
silver and gold like the Spaniards and
Mexieans 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
a high hill, is a 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.
l peeped through a hole in the hall
and saw several of these old empty
coffins.
The National Cathedral is one of the
largest and most magnificent in the
world, is was started in 1872 and was
20 years in building. Many Catholics
worked on it from youth to old age
and did not live to see it completed.
1t covers almost city block and its
lofty spires seem almost to kiss the
skies-but | haven't space for more
of this.
AT Esperanzo, one hundred and
fifty miles below the city, two noun
tains have their heads stuck I'D 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 part
300 miles south east of the City of
Mexico is what | want to tell you
about. Someone has very appropri-
ately called this "The Tropical Garden
of Mexico" and he ought to have ad-
ded "The most delightful climate and
the richest land in the world" 1t is
inndeed tropical jungle where ninety
inches of rain falls year while we
get forty-two here in eastern Okla
homa. I talked with the manager of