Much of beauty and interest there is in a study of both the old and new religions of this land; much of the romance of the former we may feel, as, standing on the pyramid whence the rays of the orb of day were flashed back from the golden breastplate of Tonatiah in days of yore, we mark the sun-god of the Aztecs sink in the Occident. CHAPTER XII MEXICAN LIFE AND TRAVEL (_continued_) Anthropogeographical conditions--The Great Plateau--The tropical belt-- Primitive villages--Incidents of travel on the plateau--Lack of water-- Hydrographic conditions--Venomous vermin--Travel by roads and _diligencias_--A journey with a priest--Courtesy of the _peon_ class-- The curse of alcohol--The dress of the working classes--The women of the _peon_ class--Dexterity of the natives--The bull-fights--A narrow escape--Mexican horse equipment--The _vaquero_ and the lasso--Native sports--A challenge to a duel--Foreigners in Mexico--Unexplored Guerrero--Sporting conditions--Camp life--A day's hunting. The picturesque incidents of life and travel in Mexico vary much according to the particular part of the country we may be sojourning in or passing through. Civilisation has advanced more upon the great plateau, threaded by numerous railway systems, than in the less accessible regions of the Pacific and Atlantic slopes. Mexican national life has not developed much upon the littoral. A harbourless and riverless country, aboriginal civilisation made little use of its coasts, and the same natural conditions have existed until to-day, although now, at great cost, harbours are being created and transverse railway lines being built. [Illustration: THE PACIFIC COAST ZONE: COCOA-NUT PALMS AT COLIMA.] Yet upon the great plateau, which, indeed, embodies a large part of Mexico, life is harder--at any rate for the labouring classes--than in the tropical regions bordering upon the Pacific and Atlantic slopes, and of that equally or more tropical region to the south of the Sierra Madres. Scantily clad, the _peon_ suffers from the brusque change from torrid day to bitterly cold night which the climate of the great tableland produces. The ground is generally sterile by nature--as elsewhere described--and all produce is grown under irrigation. In many parts of the region water is scarce, or is employed for the irrigation of highly remunerative crops, such as cotton, leaving a minimum for the growing of food products. In this arid region natural pasture is scarce, with a consequent dearth of cattle and their produce, whilst cereals, fruits, and vegetables are far from plentiful. Consequently the _peon_ has but a small choice of comestibles.