There are many villages along this route but no cities. Several broad rivers and innumerable small streams are crossed. The engines burn wood, and it is necessary to stop on several occasions and load up the tender with fuel. At Tierra Blanca are located the shops and division headquarters of the road. As the Isthmus is approached the tropical swamps become more frequent and the train passes through miles of territory where “still stands the forest primeval,” a jungle of trees and shrubs intermingled with countless varieties of palms; impenetrable forests with creepers and parasites hanging from the boughs of trees, and replanting themselves in the moist earth. Within these jungles the “tigre” roams and beneath the heavy undergrowth, horrid, venomous snakes crawl. Overhead fly noisy parrots and paroquets in couples and flocks with all of the colours of the rainbow reflected from their gaudy feathers. Then in the waters of these streams live hundreds of repulsive alligators. At certain seasons of the year the Indians live almost entirely upon the wild products of the forest. Nature furnishes fruits, and with the blow-gun or other weapon enough game can be killed to fill the larder. With a natural laziness and in an enervating climate the natives prefer existence of this kind to the more artificial one made necessary by labour. The Vera Cruz and Pacific Railway connects with the Tehuantepec railway at Santa Lucrecia, a small village with a poor hotel. Here it was my lot to be obliged to spend Christmas Eve and the greater part of Christmas day. My companions were an Englishman and a Scotchman. The Englishman rummaged around in the little store and found a canned plum pudding, which rather cheered him and his compatriot and I was invited to share in their good fortune. However the heavens seemed to open up and let the water pour down in torrents and the mud was apparently bottomless so that our explorations were confined to the hotel porch. In spite of the plum pudding my spirits were rather low and I was reminded of Touchstone wandering in the Forest of Arden, when he says:— “When I was at home I was in a better place, But travellers must be content.” It was a real pleasure to step into a fine American coach drawn by an American engine and run by an American crew bound for the chief town of the Isthmus and the one that gave it its name. [Illustration: THE MARKET, TEHUANTEPEC]