Frank learned from one of the officials of the road that there are no fewer than 148 bridges between Vera Cruz and Mexico, and on the branch to Puebla. These bridges are of various lengths, the longest being the Puente de Soledad, which measures 742 feet. The longest of the tunnels is 350 feet, and there are fifteen tunnels in all.
"Nowhere else in the world," wrote Frank, "have we seen finer engineering work than on this railway. It reminded us of the railway from Bombay to Poonah in India, the line from Colombo to Kandy in Ceylon, and the Saint Gothard and Semmering railways in the Alps. We looked down from dizzy heights where the train would have been ground to atoms had it rolled from the track into the abysses below; we crept along the edges of precipices, or in niches cut in perpendicular walls of rock; we crossed deep chasms upon slender bridges; we darted into tunnels in rapid succession, and swept around curves so sharp that it seemed as though the brakeman on the rear of the train might have shaken hands with the engine-driver. We looked into the beautiful Valley of Maltrata, which lay spread far below us, a gem of floral and arboreal beauty among the rugged hills; and we wound and turned among the sinuosities of the track so that our locomotive faced to all points of the compass a dozen times over in a single hour. In a direct distance of two and a half miles, as the bird flies, the railway goes twenty miles; looking down, we saw the track far beneath our level, and looking up we could trace its zigzags along the slopes and precipices. It was the railway passage of the Alps, the Caucasus, the Sierra Nevadas, the Indian Ghauts, and the Blue Mountains of Australia all in one.
DOUBLE-ENDER LOCOMOTIVE ON MEXICAN RAILWAY.
"We stopped a few minutes at the station of Maltrata, which is on an artificial platform that was built up from the slope; it was originally intended as a passing-point for the up and down trains, and for several years after the completion of the line the daily trains each way met at Maltrata. From this point onward the descent was as rapid as before; the locomotive held the train back instead of pulling it, and the brakes kept up a continual grinding against the wheels. We shuddered to think what would have been the result if the brakes had given way and the locomotive failed to restrain us. But in such an event our agony would have been brief, as the whole business would have been ended in a few minutes. They told us that once when a freight train was climbing the mountain two of the rear wagons became detached and started down the slope. Fortunately there was no one on these wagons to lose his life; they jumped the track at one of the curves, and were dashed a thousand feet or more down a steep hill-side into a rocky valley.
"A little distance below Maltrata we skirted one side of the Barranca del Infernillo, a great chasm which made our heads swim as we looked into it. Twelve miles from Maltrata we reached Orizaba, where we had arranged to spend a day, and therefore we left the train as it drew up at the station.
"We observed a change in the vegetation as we descended the slope; we had left the tierra fria behind us, and were now in the tierra templada, or temperate region. The maguey and cactus gave way to darker and richer verdure, which was certainly far more pleasing to the eye than the scanty vegetation of the great plateau. Orizaba is 4000 feet above sea-level, 181 miles from the capital of the republic, and eighty-two from Vera Cruz. It has 20,000 inhabitants, and is a favorite resort of the people of Vera Cruz in the hot and sickly season.
"We expected to have a fine view of the peak of Orizaba from the town of the same name; but in this we were disappointed, as there is no part of the great volcano visible from here, except a thin strip of white over the top of a nearer and lower mountain; even this strip cannot be seen from all parts of the town, but only by climbing to the roof of the hotel or the tower of one of the churches.
"Doctor Bronson asked if we wished to ascend the peak of Orizaba; we gave a prompt negative to his question, partly for the reason that his plans would not permit us to stay here long enough, and partly because the sensation was pretty well exhausted at Popocatepetl. The ascent is quite as difficult as that of Old Popo; Orizaba is a beautiful peak, shaped like a sugar-loaf, and wearing constantly a mantle of purest snow upon its regular and beautiful cone. According to Humboldt, it is 17,378 feet high; a party of American officers ascended it in 1848; three years later a Frenchman named Doignon followed their example, and found the flagstaff they left there, with the torn fragments of the American flag which marked their visit.