"There was a town here at the time of the Conquest, and Cortez left a small garrison to hold it when he pushed on to Mexico. It has an agreeable climate, the frequent rains and the mists from the Gulf keeping it well moistened, so that the trees, plants, and green things generally are in a high state of luxuriance. Coffee and tobacco are grown here in large quantities. The town has quite a manufacturing industry, and contains the repair and construction shops of the railway company. We greatly enjoyed a stroll through the streets, which seemed rather dull and sleepy after those of the capital. Most of the houses are covered with red tiles, which give the city a very picturesque appearance when it is looked upon from the heights surrounding it. Like all old towns of Mexico, it has an abundant supply of churches, and the inhabitants are mostly of the Catholic faith. Not many years ago it was unsafe for a Protestant woman to appear on the streets wearing a hat or bonnet of foreign make; she was liable to be pelted with mud and stones, and her life was by no means out of danger. A milder feeling prevails at present, and the old bigotry is steadily passing away.
VIEW OF ORIZABA.
"We made a pleasant excursion in the environs of the city, which are very attractive, owing to the luxuriance of the vegetation. Fields of coffee, tobacco, sugar-cane, oranges, and bananas alternate with each other and show the mildness of the climate of Orizaba; some of the plantations are of great extent, and we received many invitations to make a leisurely visit and spend whatever time we liked in their examination.
"One of the sights of the place which we were told not to omit were the falls of the Rincon Grande, about three miles from the city. We did not omit the falls, and will always hold them in pleasant recollection. The Rio de Agua Blanco, which supplied the water for the falls, is a deep and swift stream coming from the mountains to the eastward of Orizaba. Much of its course is through a deep cañon; but where the falls begin, a part of the river flows along the surface of the mesa which forms one side of the ravine, and breaks over the side to join the main stream below.
"The fall is perhaps fifty feet from top to bottom, and a cloud of mist rises like that from Niagara or Montmorency. Both sides of the fall are bordered with a luxuriance of tropical verdure, rendered especially luxuriant by the moisture from the plunging waters. The trees are covered with bunches of Spanish moss, some of them several feet in length, and by numerous parasitical plants, nearly all gaudy with flowers. Some of the trees are so completely in the grasp of the parasites that hardly anything of the original trunk or limbs can be seen. They showed us one tree that had been killed by the parasites; the wood had decayed and crumbled, and the vines were so thick where it had stood that they remained erect as though unaware that their former support had passed away.
"We saw the falls from above and also from below; and while both views were interesting, each had an especial beauty of its own. The shrubbery was so dense that we could walk only in the paths that had been cut for the purpose; and the growth of vegetation is so rapid that these paths require to be trimmed out several times a year. There is no possibility of straying from the path, for the simple reason that it is impossible to proceed in the dense undergrowth except by the aid of a machete. Though at an elevation of 4000 feet above the sea, Orizaba has a tropical climate; its location places it in the tierra templada, but its temperature and characteristics would seem to include it in the tierra caliente. And not only its temperature but its mosquitoes give it a tropical character, as they are of the kind with which the traveller in equatorial regions has a disagreeable familiarity.
