tion of baggage is not much more than a formality. We find that the railroad conductors and engineers, and indeed most of the station agents, are Americans, and the cars and engines are from the United States also. This is to a very large extent true of all the railroads in Mexico.

The railroad from El Paso to the City of Mexico must pass over almost the identical route used by the Aztecs on their march to the same city centuries ago. Through most of the twelve hundred and twenty-four miles from El Paso to the city of Mexico, the railroad (the Mexican Central) passes through the centre of the great plain of the tablelands, which average six thousand to seven thousand feet above sea level, with mountain ranges on either hand, marking the edges where the country on either side begins to descend to the shore. The first four hundred and fifty miles is through the great plains of the State of Chihuahua, which is a stock country and thinly settled, the population being principally in the mining towns in the mountain ranges off from the line of railway. Along this route, however, must be the sportsman's paradise, as game of all kinds is very abundant.

We then pass into the State of Durango and run some seventy miles along its upper edge through a fine farming country known as the Mapinis section, where cotton is largely raised. One insignificant station alone ships

forty thousand bales of cotton annually, and as the value of silver money has not been artificially doubled by legislation, as with us, cotton brings its normal price of thirteen to fourteen cents per pound. The railroad rates and passenger fares remaining also at the same figure as formerly, the farmer does not, as with us, have to pay double the amount in produce for the transportation of himself or freight and for taxes, and consequently is very prosperous. The cotton plant in Mexico lasts for seven or eight years without replanting and yields two crops a year.

At Torreon we pass in the State of Coahuila, and meet the International R. R. (known as Count Telfner's R. R.), which, crossing the Rio Grande at Eagle Pass in Texas, offers a shorter route to the central and eastern parts of the United States than the Mexican Central; still it is not so direct as the Mexican National R. R., which, crossing the river still lower down, at Laredo, is the shortest, route of all, having reduced the time from New York to the City of Mexico to four and a half days. The International, crossing the Central here at Torreon, proceeds southwestwardly some two hundred miles further to the city of Durango. Torreon is a thriving, live town which has sprung up since the advent of the railroads and already numbers several large factories. We now pass through some seventy miles in Coahuila, and ascending a cross range