at Aguas Calientes; another, running about
due west towards the port of San Blas on the Pacific, has already been
completed as far as Guadalajara, starting from the main trunk at
Irapuato. The former city being the present terminus of the road, is
considered the second in importance in Mexico. When the narrow space
still remaining is opened by rail, the continent will be crossed by
railway trains between the Atlantic and Pacific at a narrow and most
available point. The increase of way passengers and freight upon this
road during the past two years is a source of surprise and of
gratification to the company. The rolling stock is being monthly
increased, having proved to be inadequate to the business.

The Tampico branch of this road passes through scenery which experienced
travelers pronounce to be equal in grandeur to any on this continent.
Indeed, had the appalling engineering difficulties to be encountered
been fully realized before the road was begun, it is doubtful if it
would have been built. The cost has slightly exceeded ten million
dollars. That which seemed easy enough, as designed upon paper, proved
to be a herculean task in the consummation. It was a portion of the
original plan, when the Mexican Central Railroad was surveyed, to build
this branch, and six years after the completion of the main trunk the
Tampico road was duly opened. The distance from this harbor on the Gulf
of Mexico to Aguas Calientes is a trifle over four hundred miles. With
the improvements already under way, it will be rendered the best seaport
on the Gulf, infinitely superior, especially in point of safe anchorage,
to the open roadstead of Vera Cruz. Every ton of freight is now landed
at the latter port by lighters, and must continue to be so from the
nature of the coast; while in a couple of years at farthest Tampico will
have a most excellent harbor, perfectly sheltered, where the largest
steamships can lie at the wharf and discharge their cargoes. We are
sorry to say that San Blas, on the Pacific side, does not promise to
make so desirable a port. It is even suggested that Mazatalan, further
north, should be made the terminus of this branch road. American
enterprise and progressive ideas are peacefully but surely
revolutionizing a country where all previous change has been
accomplished by the sword, and all advance has been from scaffold to
scaffold. It would seem as though political convulsions formed one of
the conditions of natio