XXXIII.
MEXICO REVISITED.
I.
It is now six years since I first set foot in Mexico.
What has happened in the mean time? How have the many new enterprises of that day of stirring activity resulted? How have the sanguine expectations then entertained been justified by the facts? Sighting, as it were, through two points of view so remote from each other, perhaps something like mature conclusions may be arrived at. The chief field of inquiry remains—the rail-roads. The great Mexican Central has been completed throughout its entire length of 1224 miles. It was built at the rate of more than a mile a day. Thus, in seven days from New York, at a cost of $125, or in two days and thirteen hours from the frontier, at a cost of $52, you now are at the Capital.
You cross the Rio Grande from El Paso by an American trestle bridge to Paso del Norte. The custom examinations at both these places, as indeed at all points along the frontier, are a great improvement on those at New York. The one daily train starts late in the afternoon. The first morning you reach Chihuahua, the second Calera, and the third Mexico. A contemporary who does me the honor to copy my early map—together with numerous illustrations overlooks the trifling fact that a long section of the road—some five hundred and sixty
