I made this trip when it required twenty-six hours to cover the two hundred miles from Vera Cruz to Santa Lucrecia. No one asked the engineer to go faster, and we considered ourselves in luck not to run off the rails, which in many places resembled the track made by a wobbly wheel after we had passed over it. It has now been placed in better condition, and the run is made in much quicker time. No one must expect quick time on Mexican railroads, for twenty-five miles an hour is fast travelling and the average is nearer fifteen miles. The section traversed by this road must inevitably be the richest part of Mexico in the near future, now that it has an outlet. It passes through the region best adapted for tropical plantations where the soil is inexhaustible. One of the dreams of the late James G. Blaine was a Pan-American railroad or all-rail route from the United States to the southernmost republics of South America. President Arthur appointed a commission in 1884 which was sent to the republics of Central and South America along the proposed route. At the first Pan-American conference held in Washington, this projected railway was discussed at considerable length. All the representatives were in favour of it and a survey was decided upon. Several parties of surveyors were set to work at different points along the proposed route, and a complete survey was made from Oaxaca, Mexico, to the northernmost point reached by the railways of the Argentine Republic. The proposition excited a great deal of interest and discussion at the time, but little has been heard of it in recent years. There is one man in Mexico, however, who has not lost sight of the great project, and that man is J. M. Neeland. He organized a company to build the Pan-American Railroad from San Geronimo, a station on the Tehuantepec National Railroad to the boundary of Guatemala, a distance of about three hundred miles. The Mexican government promised a subsidy of $10,000 gold, per mile. He has followed the base of the mountain range in order to lessen the expense of construction, and render it easy to connect with the ports by means of branch lines. It follows as nearly as possible an old military road constructed by the Spaniards.