CHAPTER V.
FROM BORDER TO CAPITAL ALONG THE MEXICAN CENTRAL.
VAMONOS!" shouts the smartly uniformed American conductor in the estacion on the further bank of the Rio Grande. This rhythmical Spanish word affords a pleasing contrast to its sharp prosaic equivalent known to us as "All aboard!" The bell rings, the engine shrieks and hisses, then smoothly we glide along in that crowning luxury of civilization —a Pullman car— into the "land of the cactus and sweet cacao."
The open plain stretched afar on this glorious, full-moon night, and seemed, like the ocean, to blend its horizon with the heavens. No sound broke the stillness save the rumble of the train or the occasional shriek of the locomotive with its warning to the loitering cattle on the road-bed, all unconscious of their danger.
The location of El Paso, whose lights were fast fading in the distance behind us, is in every way desirable, being the connecting point of the Mexican Central with the railways of the United States. Five connecting lines of railway enter the city: the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio; the Southern Pacific; the Texan Pacific; the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, with good prospects for another. There can be no doubt but that it will be a great railroad center and distributing point for the Southwest.
The town hugs the river closely and nestles snugly in a fertile valley, perhaps fifty miles long, in which, where irrigating facilities are obtained, wheat and corn are produced in great abundance. Its alti-
