It is not very difficult to see where this state of things will end. We can approximately calculate the time when the requirements of the railway will attack the rare forests as yet crowning the higher hills, and their summits be denuded also!
After Ayotla the landscape somewhat improves.
SANTA ANITA CANAL. We begin to see a few gardens, a few olive-trees, immense plantations of aloe, affording at once drink and raiment, yellow maize ready to be gathered before the impending rains. We are approaching the mountains and have passed Compañia and Lake Chalco on our right, and go through Rio Frio, once a favourite station for brigands. On my first journey I fell a prey to them with a diligence full of people, when like a flock of sheep we all stood to be plundered by two wretched-looking fellows one could have brought down at one blow. At that time, however, it was deemed wise to offer no resistance, for fear of unseen companions lurking close by. Now Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl, bearing to heaven their snowy peaks, become more and more distinct; here is Tematla, and a few minutes more bring us to Tenango del Aire, “windy,” where violent winds generally prevail. The line here leaves the old road which used to pass Tlalmanal, and for my part I regret it, as I miss seeing the remains of a convent built in the first years of the Conquest, which was never finished.
The ruins are composed of fragments of walls with a portico formed by five arches, supported by slender columns as finely sculptured as a Chinese ivory casket. Indian artists executed this beautiful carving after designs furnished by the Catholic Spaniards. I am told by the guard that when this line was open, hundreds of vases, statuettes, pottery of every shape and size were unearthed, none of which found their way to the Museum, the officials having shared the spoil among themselves. It is grievous to think that so many precious objects are lost to science, when it would be so easy for the Mexican Government to introduce a clause by which the contractors bound themselves to give up to the authorities any antiquities they happened to bring to light.
It was seven o’clock when we entered the station of Amecameca, having been four hours in performing a journey of some sixty-four miles. It was now pitch dark, so that our luggage was piled into the cart without our examining it, and it was not until we were in the house which was to take us in, there being no hotel in the place, that I perceived both locks of my portmanteau had been broken and £20 out of £60 taken. I naturally complained to the authorities, but as I could not say where the theft had taken place (though it must have been accomplished either at the station in Mexico or in the train) I obtained no redress, and I comforted myself with the thought that it would have been much worse had they taken the whole.
AMECAMECA.
Amecameca is situated at an altitude of 626 feet above Mexico, at the foot of Monte-Sacro, planted with beautiful trees; the air is cool even in summer and the climate good. This circumstance has made it a favourite resort for the rich Mexicans eager to escape from the excessive heat of the plain. But even in this favoured climate storms, rain, and winds prevail during several months of the year; hence perpendicular roofs have replaced azoteas, giving it the aspect of an Alpine village. No more enchanting scenery can well be imagined: to the south-east, great Popocatepetl rises to the enormous height of 17,852 feet above the level of the sea; fronting it to the east Iztaccihuatl, 15,208 feet, spreading its mantle of snow over its broad surface; and if yielding in bulk and height to its gigantic neighbour it is far more picturesque, surrounded by a belt of hills, with a thousand fantastic forms, broken peaks, massive rocks, and deep ravines, presenting a variety and richness of colouring unsurpassed anywhere. In the morning the plain is covered with a slight white mist, like a bridal veil, through which show the tapering stalks of Indian corn and the gloomy masses of trees. In this light the lower hills are of a tender peacock-green, deepening to the darkest blue in the barrancas, whilst the crests are tinged with a faint blush; but when storms, at this season very frequent, burst upon the gigantic and broken surface of these mountains, when clouds sweep across their slopes clashing against each other, and the lightning illumines the whole sky, when the thunder is re-echoed from all these peaks, from all these pinnacles, to die in the distant ravines, one understands how a primitive race peopled Popocatepetl with giants and evil spirits, whose agonies in their prison-house found expression in these convulsions of nature. But if at this season we have a succession of thunderstorms and torrential rains, if the sky is overcast at night and white exhalations rise from the plain, the mornings are bright and wonderfully calm.