This State is divided into 25 partidos, or districts, the chief of which are Atlixco, Guauchinango, Ométepéc, Puebla, Tepéaca, Tehuacan de las Granádas, Tlapan, and Zacatlan. It possesses 5 cities and towns, 126 parishes, 590 villages, 412 haciendas or plantations, and 857 large and small ranchos or farms. The surface of this State is divided between mountains, vallies, plains or low lands; and produces corn, wheat, barley, chile, maguey, beans and all the hardier, together with some of the southern fruits and plants. The wheat flour of Puebla is celebrated for its excellence, and has sometimes been exported to Havana and South America.
In the neighborhood of Oajaca cochineal is sometimes produced; and on the low lands towards the western coast, cotton, rice, and small quantities of coffee and sugar are cultivated. The Llanos de Apam, in the neighborhood of the State of Mexico are celebrated for their fertility, and especially renowned for the excellence of the pulque, produced from the maguey or Agave Americana.
Nearly four-fifths of the real property of Puebla either belongs or is hypothecated to the church and to hospitals, and consequently the agriculture of the State is not as well managed as if the land belonged to independent farmers, who derived their wealth directly from the soil. Great poverty prevails among the lower classes, and their sad condition is generally attributed in Mexico to the mismanagement of real estate by the clergy.
The water power in the neighborhood of the city of Puebla has given a stimulus to manufactories, and the reader will find in our chapter upon that branch of Mexican industry some interesting statistical facts showing the progress made by the inhabitants of this portion of the Republic.
The only river of any importance in Puebla is the Rio de Tlascala or Papagallo, which rises in the table lands, and runs southerly from the village of Ayútla to the Pacific. The Pascaqualca, Tacunapa, Tecoyama, and the San José are insignificant streamlets along the coast.
The chief cities of this State are Puebla or Puebla de los Angeles—the "City of the Angels,"—which is the capital and the seat of the State government. It is a beautiful town, lying in the midst of a fruitful plain bounded by the mountains, and shut in at the west by the gigantic peaks of Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl. Broad, clean and well paved streets cross it at suitable distances. The houses are large, convenient and neat, and numerous churches forever send forth the music of their bells. A beautiful public walk, planted with rows of trees, runs along a small stream on the outskirts of the city; and an Alameda, of exceeding beauty, lies opposite the extensive pile of San Francisco on the west. In the centre of the town is a large well paved public square, surrounded by portales or arches, similar to those of Bologna, in Italy, while in its centre is the massive cathedral whose wealth is renowned among the Roman Catholic churches of America. A splendid and weighty chandelier, composed of gold and silver, weighing altogether several tons, depends from the dome, whilst the figures of saints, the tops of altars, and the recesses of chapels, gleam, on State occasions with a display of precious metals and jewels which is perhaps unequalled even by the cathedral of Mexico or the sanctuary of Guadalupe. There are other establishments in Puebla belonging to the Franciscan and Augustin monks, and several churches, which are celebrated for their elegance, comfort and wealth. The Palace of the Bishop, in the vicinity of the cathedral, is a massive edifice, containing a library of many thousand volumes in a saloon 200 feet long by 40 broad.