Since my former sheet, Farlow and I have been mousing about the city of Mexico, I coughing most of the time, in a clear, dry air and nearly cloudless sky, weather which should be most delightful, but somehow it is bad for the throat (for the natives as well as for us), and the rarefied air puts one out of breath at a little exertion; mornings and evenings cool and fresh, the midday warm, in the sun trying.... Called in a physician, a sort of medical man to American embassy, who came here with Maximilian, and stayed. Very intelligent. Ordered us to come here as soon as Mrs. Gray could travel. Here only 4,028 feet and a warmer damp air. Well, we tried it yesterday; had to leave city of Mexico at 6.15 A.M., our hotel at 5.30 cold, no breakfast; had to travel till ten or nearly before we could get even a decent cup of coffee, at junction of road to Vera Cruz and Puebla, and after rising to 8,333 feet in getting out of the Valley of Mexico; but at 1 P.M., at Esperanza, in the Tierra Frias, had a capital dinner, and met train from Vera Cruz. Here pine-trees on the hills all round us, two species. Soon begins the descent and a complete change of air, the other side all dry and horrid dust, making our catarrh worse than ever; now the moisture from the Gulf of Mexico makes all green; the road by skillful engineering pitches down 4,000 feet to this, the greater part of the descent all in eight or nine miles of straight line as the bird flies. In all the Valley of Mexico and to the north of it really nothing in blossom yet, all so dry, except Senecio salignus, if I rightly remember the name, a shrub of 1-4 feet, just becoming golden with blossoms. But the moment we began the descent all was flowery, two species of Baccharis, Eupatoria, Erigeron mucronatum (so much cultivated under the false name of Vittadenia triloba), Lœseliæ species, Arbutus, (Xalapensis) in bud, and many things of which we shall know more when we return over the route.... Very comfortable hotel here. Botteri[132] left an élêve here who knows something of botany, but lives out of reach on a hacienda. We found a garden combined with a small coffee plantation. The proprietor thereof, speaking a little French, has filled his ground with a lot of things that will stand here. It is just in _medias res_, two hours below Tierra Frias, two above (or at Cordoba, only seventeen miles, but 2,000 feet lower) true tropical. Papaya fruits here, also Persea gratissima, etc. And the oranges are delicious. I have passed the whole morning with the garden man, while Farlow went up a small steep mountain, and brought back various things. We shall drive this afternoon to the Cascade of Rincon Grande (cascades are most rare in Mexico). The air here suits us; shall try to leave our coughs here and at Cordoba below.