Along both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts there is a more or less broad tract called the _tierra caliente_, or hot land, which is a truly tropical region. Forests of dense growth cover the soil, so thick that it is impossible to penetrate them without blazing your way as you go, and in the midst of which tower trees of magnificent size, such as are to be seen only in the tropics. Here it is that nature is over-prodigal in her gifts; and here it is that the _vomito_, as yellow fever is called, lurks with fatal effect. The winds from the sea generally mitigate the fierce heat, especially if one can remain out of the sun during the middle of the day. Sometimes these winds on the Atlantic coast acquire great velocity, and burst forth upon the unprotected shores with terrific fury as the so-called “northers.” There is no true winter here, but there is a rainy season from June to October, and a dry season from November to May, the former being the colder. “In the course of a few hours,” says Prescott, “the traveller may experience every gradation of climate, embracing torrid heat and glacial cold, and pass through different zones of vegetation including wheat and the sugar-cane, the ash and the palm, apples, olives, and guavas.” The dwellings vary also. In the hot lands the habitations are constructed of bamboo and light poles open to sun and wind, for the only shelter needed is protection from the elements; in the temperate region the huts are made of heavier poles, and are somewhat more durable; in the higher lands they are built of adobe or stone. Sugar cane and coffee, and even the banana, will grow up to four thousand feet. Wheat grows best at six thousand feet and pines commence here too. At seven thousand feet cactus appears, and the _maguey_, ushering in an entirely different zone. Mexico is a country of extremes of heat and cold, poverty and riches, filth and cleanliness, education and extreme ignorance.