The first town of any size is Monterey, capital of the state of Nuevo Leon, the oldest and one of the most important cities in Northern Mexico. It lies in a lovely valley with high hills on every side. It is at a lower altitude than the cities farther south on this line and enjoys a salubrious climate. Monterey is a very much Americanized town and has great smelters, factories, and breweries, but it also boasts of beautiful gardens and some old churches. The Topo Chico hot springs only a few miles away have a great reputation for healing. Here it was, in 1846, that General Taylor overcame a much superior force of the enemy under General Ampudia in a desperate and stubbornly disputed battle lasting several days, the contest being hotly fought from street to street. The Mexican troops entered the houses and shot at the American soldiers from the windows and roofs. It is now a city of more than fifty thousand people. Leaving Monterey, the road soon begins a gradual ascent to the higher plateaus and reaches the zone called _tierra fria_, or cold country. This name would seem a misnomer to one who hails from the land of snow and ice, for the mean temperature of this “cold land” is that of a perpetual spring such as is enjoyed north of Mason and Dixon’s line. It is properly applied to all that part of Mexico which is six thousand feet or more above the level of the sea and the greater part of the immense central plateaus comes within this designation. These plains which comprise about two-thirds of the entire country, are formed by the great Andes range of mountains which separates into two great _cordillerias_ near Oaxaca and gradually grow farther and farther apart as they approach the Rio Grande. The western branch crowds the shore of the Pacific and the eastern follows the coast line of the Gulf of Mexico, but the latter keeps at a greater distance from the sea, thus giving a wider expanse of the hotlands. They are not level tablelands, these _mesas_, as they always slope in some direction. The arid condition follows as a natural course, for the lofty ranges cause the rain to be precipitated on the coast lands except during certain seasons in the year when the winds change. When the rains do come, a miracle is wrought, and the sombre landscape blossoms into a lively green dotted with flowers. It is rare to find such great plains at so high an altitude. Although now almost barren of trees it is probable that in early times these tablelands were covered with a forest growth principally of oak and cypress. This is evidenced by the few groves that yet remain, in which many of the trees are of extraordinary dimensions. The Spaniards completed the spoliation that had been begun by the earlier races.