The city of Puebla is the second in the Republic and contains nearly 95,000 inhabitants. It is an important seat of Mexican civilisation, of which the Republic is justly proud and, indeed, its state of prosperity and consequent advanced civilisation are noteworthy. The productions of the numerous industries and factories in the district are exported to all the main centres of the Republic, especially the textile fabrics, and also to Central and South American countries. The central portion of the state is traversed by several main lines of railway, as the International and the Mexico and Vera Cruz, whilst the Mexican Southern unites it with Oaxaca and the Tehuantepec Railway. The archaeological remains of Cholula--the prehistoric ruins elsewhere described--lend much interest to the diversified and beautiful State of Puebla. * * * * * We have now to consider the Atlantic, or Mexican Gulf littoral States. Tamaulipas is one of the frontier states bordering upon the United States; its northern frontier adjoining Texas, from which it is divided by the Rio Grande or Bravo. On its eastern side it is washed by the Gulf of Mexico, its littoral extending along the Gulf for more than 260 miles--from the estuary of the Rio Grande or Bravo, to that of the Panuco river at Tampico. Topographically, the state consists of the coast plains, occupying about two-thirds of its area, and the mountainous or hilly region of the eastern slope of the Eastern Sierra Madre, of the remainder. The area is 29,340 square miles, and the population 190,000. The rivers of the state are numerous, notably the Conchas, the Soto la Marina, and the Tamesi, all falling into the Gulf of Mexico; and great lagoons--as the Laguna Madre, 125 miles long--border upon the coast, separated from the sea, in some places only by a ridge of narrow sand-dunes. The Laguna Madre has become dried up, however, due to the silting up of its channels. The climate varies much, the coast being hot and in places unhealthy, subject to the diseases peculiar to those regions, although it has been found that drainage and sanitary measures have worked a remarkable change at the formerly unhealthy port of Tampico. The mountainous regions of the Sierra Madre bound the state on the west, with a cool climate and temperate uplands, and the climate as a whole is considered superior to that of Coahuila.