The plain before me is level, as though its surface were liquid. I see mountains bounding it on all sides; but there are passes through them that lead into other plains (valus). These mountains have no foot-hills. They stand up directly from the plain itself, sometimes with sloping conical sides—sometimes in precipitous cliffs.
I ride into the plain and survey its features. There is no resemblance to the land I have left—the tierra caliente. I am now in the tierra templada. New objects present themselves—a new aspect is before, a new atmosphere around me. The air is colder, but it is only the temperature of spring. To me it feels chilly, coming so lately from the hot lands below; and I fold my cloak closely around me, and ride on.
The view is open, for the valu is almost treeless. The scene is no longer wild. The earth has a cultivated aspect—an aspect of civilisation: for these high plateaux—the tierras templadas—are the seat of Mexican civilisation. Here are the towns—the great cities, with their rich cathedrals and convents—here dwells the bulk of the population. Here the rancho is built of unburnt bricks (adobe’s)—a mud cabin, often inclosed by hedges of the columnar cactus. Here are whole villages of such huts, inhabited by the dark-skinned descendants of the ancient Aztecs.
Fertile fields are around me. I behold the maguey of culture (Agave Americana), in all its giant proportions. The lance-like blades of the zea maize wave with a rich rustling in the breeze, for here that beautiful plant grows in its greatest luxuriance. Immense plains are covered with wheat, with capsicum, and the Spanish bean (frijoles). My eyes are gladdened by the sight of roses climbing along the wall or twining the portal. Here, too, the potato (Solanum tuberosum) flourishes in its native soil; the pear and the pomegranate, the quince and the apple, are seen in the orchard; and the cereals of the temperate zone grow side by side with the Cucurbitacece of the tropics.
I pass from one valu into another, by crossing a low ridge of the dividing mountains. Mark the change! A surface of green is before me, reaching on all sides to the mountain foot; and upon this roam countless herds, tended by mounted “vaqueros” (herdsmen).
I pass another ridge, and another valid stretches before me. Again a change! A desert of sand, over the surface of which move tall dun columns of swirling dust, like the gigantic phantoms of some spirit-world. I look into another valle, and behold shining waters—lakes like inland seas—with sedgy shores and surrounded by green savannas, and vast swamps covered with reeds and “tulares” (bulrush).
Still another plain, black with lava and the scoriae of extinct volcanoes—black, treeless, and herbless—with not an atom of organic matter upon its desolate surface.
Such are the features of the plateau-land—varied, and vast, and full of wild interest.
I leave it and climb higher—nearer to the sky—up the steep sides of the Cordilleras—up to the tierra fria.