not ordinarily of great value.

The stage-coach has been forgotten in story-telling while slowly
climbing up the pass, but as soon as we had overcome this impediment we
started off again upon an unrepaired road, at our former neck-breaking
speed, which we kept up until we reached Encerro, where for a little
way we had an earthen road. Yet it was only a short breathing before we
were upon the rough stones again. We had been gradually passing through
different strata of atmosphere in our journey upward, the changes in
the character of the vegetation kept pace with the change of the
climate.

"Whose is that estate inclosed by such an antiquated looking stone
wall?" I inquired, of a fellow-traveler.

"That belongs to Don Isidoro; and it extends some thirty leagues," was
the reply. "You see that ridge of hills. That is its northern boundary.
This wall separates it from the estate of Santa Anna. In fact it is
surrounded by a continuous and substantial stone-wall, sufficient to
keep in cattle. This spot of land sufficiently large for a county, with
a soil the richest in the world, and a climate like that of Jalapa, is
given up to be a range for thousands of cattle."

A TROPICAL FOREST.

We must hasten to our journey's end, which, for the present, is Jalapa.
While here, we can sum up the story of our eighteen hours' ride. From
Vera Cruz we passed through a tropical marsh, presenting a striking
contrast to what we had witnessed about that town. In place of being
surrounded by hot, shifting hillocks of sand, we were in the midst of
tropical vegetation. Trees not only bore their own natural burdens, but
were borne down with creepers, vines, and parasitic plants; forming one
strange mass of foliage of very many distinct kinds matted together and
mingled into one. Plantations of vanilla, of coffee, of cocoa, or of
sugar-cane, nowhere approached our road; nor were the cocoa-nut, the
banana, and the plantain, so familiar in all tropical climates, often
visible. Upon the whole route there were little evidences of labor,
except those furnished by the road itself. It was all wilderness. Yet
the graceful features of the creepers, hanging from branch to branch of
the sycamores, and the shady arbors formed by their dense foliage,
looked as though a gardener's hand could be traced in so much
regularity; yet it was only Nature's own gardening, where the wild
birds might build their nests, and breed, and sing without fear of
disturbanc