Great Britain, or as large as Great Britain,
France, Germany, and Austria-Hungary all joined together; and this
enormous area is inhabited at present by only fourteen or fifteen
million people.

Although Mexico lies half within and half without the tropics, it is
generally known as a tropical country; and, indeed, the main gateway to
it, Vera Cruz, is a tropical seaport, which may well give rise to such
a general impression upon the part of the European traveller. A
different impression, however, is acquired upon entering the country
from the United States to the north. No tropic forests and
bright-plumaged birds are encountered there as at Vera Cruz; instead
are vast stretches of desert lying within the temperate zone,
alternating with cultivated plains and interspersed with large towns.
The traveller, roused by the shriek of the locomotive, looks forth into
the clear dawn of the chill Mexican morning from the window of his
sleeping-berth upon the Pullman car, as the train speeds over the
plateau.

[Illustration: MEXICO'S ARTIFICIAL HARBOURS: THE NEW PORT WORKS AT VERA
CRUZ, A SOLID AND COSTLY ENTERPRISE.]

No fact is more strongly borne upon the traveller in Andine and
Cordillera-formed countries than that latitude forms but an unreliable
guide to climate and temperature. Nearness to the Equator, with its
accompanying torridity, is often counterbalanced by high elevations
above sea-level, with consequent rarefied air and low temperature--a
combination which embodies considerable advantages, as well as some
drawbacks. These conditions are very marked in Mexico. Entering the
country from Vera Cruz, we rise rapidly from sea-level to 7,410 feet at
the City of Mexico; entering from the United States, we rise
imperceptibly from 4,000 feet to the same elevation. As to its
geographical position, the country extends over 18 degrees of latitude,
from 32-1/2 degrees north to 14-1/2 degrees north, and it lies between
the 86th and 118th meridian west of Greenwich.

Topographically the country offers a very varied surface, the main
features of which are the Great Plateau, the extensive, lofty tableland
known as the _mesa central_; and the Pacific and Atlantic slopes,
formed by the flanks of the Sierra Madres mountains towards these
oceans respectively. At the base of these ranges are the lowlands of
the coasts; whilst the eastern extremity of the country is formed by
the singular plains of the peninsula of Yucatan.

A large