Page:Appleton's Guide to Mexico.djvu/40

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12
GENERAL INFORMATION.

the unsettled condition of the country during the period of construction, the main line cost $30,000,000.

The company's telegraph is described in Section II.

No rolling-stock has yet been purchased by the Mexican Southern Railroad, or by the International and Interoceanic Railway. So little work on these two lines has been done that a description of the permanent way would be premature.

STEAMSHIPS.

The majority of the steamships running to Mexico are owned and controlled by Americans. The Alexandre[1] line of steamers plies between New York and Vera Cruz, via Havana, and also between New Orleans and Vera Cruz. The Morgan line runs between New Orleans, Galveston, and Vera Cruz. The Pacific Mail steamers touch at all the ports on the Pacific coast, beginning with Mazatlan. There are two lines of coasting steamers on the Pacific, which run as far north as Guaymas. One of them is owned by a Mexican, and the other belongs to an American. Small steamships sail from Matamoros (Bagdad) down the Gulf of Mexico, calling at Tampico, Tuxpan, Vera Cruz, Frontera, Campeche, Progreso, and intermediate ports. (For particulars as to time of sailing, fares, etc., see advertisements.)

Some capitalists in Mexico have recently organized a company, and have ordered six iron steamers, each of four thousand tons burden, which are to be run between England and Italy and Vera Cruz. Its title is the Mexican Transatlantic Steamship Company. One of the steamers is to be called the Estado de Tamaulipas, in compliment to President Gonzalez, and another the Estado de Oaxaca, in honor of General Diaz. The steamers will cost at least 700,000 each, and the engines will be of five hundred

  1. This line receives a subsidy of $2,000 per round trip from the Mexican Government.