birds to come nearer to its brink and bathe their toes and quench their thirst with its foaming waves. Near midday it gets loud and boisterous, and you seem to hear: "The day is short, improve your time," over and over with a monotony that rather fascinates us.
Directly above this wonderful fall is a cozy little garden, cultivated by the landlady, who also deserves a word. She is a German, who accompanied her husband to this country some years ago. He died and left her in a strange land with two baby girls, whom she maintains by running this hotel. She is quite pretty, and speaks German and Spanish fluently, while she is studying English, and understands some now. She keeps her house, like most Germans, as clean as it can possibly be made, and endeavors to have all her guests feel at home. The cooking is so good and everything so comfortable that one would fain have the little German woman and the La Borda in every town in the republic.
Orizaba is a beautiful little valley surrounded by a chain of majestic mountains. The houses are white and most generally of one and two stories. There are 25,500 inhabitants. It was for a long time the capital of Vera Cruz. When this place was first founded in the year 1200 by the Tlascaltacas, its original name was Abanializapan, which, translated, meant "Pleasure in or on the water." The people prospered and lived in peace and happiness until the Aztec Emperor Montezuma reduced them to his dominion in 1457. Still under such a good and wise king they could not be otherwise than happy in this lovely garden, until Gonzalo Sandoval undertook and was successful in conquering them in 1521. But even war did not stop its progress, and in ten years later, in 1531, the governor gave it its present name, the Valley of Orizaba. The people grew in intelligence, and were industrious and religious. In 1534 they built their first parish church, Gonzalo de Olmedo, and as early as 1599 had put up a building and opened their first school. Inhabitants increased rapidly, and in 1774 it took the rank of town. Not satisfied yet, they built up, and the population increased by birth and new settlers until in 1830 it was declared to be a city.
Orizaba was for a long time capital of its state. Vera Cruz, and is now the pleasure and health resort for peo-
