while the sides of the adjacent hills are covered with a fine growth of Northern forest-trees. The luxuriancy of the vegetation surpasses even that which I remarked between Zĭmăpān and the Encarnacion, and the variety is certainly greater.
Yet this magnificent tract of country is, with the exception of a few farms and villages, uninhabited, from the total want of a market for the produce.
From the Hacienda of Hoconusco, where I slept on the night of the 26th, and which is fourteen leagues from Temascaltepec, and forty-six from Mexico, wheat, which might be raised to almost any extent, must be sent to the Capital in order to be disposed of. The revival of the Mines at Temascaltepec can alone give any importance to the agriculture of this part of the country, and this may account for the eagerness with which their progress is watched by the inhabitants.
From Hoconusco the road passes through Zitācŭarŏ, which was formerly a flourishing town, but was destroyed entirely by the King's troops, under General Căllējă, during the Revolution; having acquired a fatal distinction by being selected as the residence of the first Independent Junta. It is now nearly in ruins, and will probably never recover its former importance.
Angangeo is about eight leagues from Zitacuaro. The greatest part of the road consists of a steep ascent. I never saw a town that presented more thoroughly the appearance of a Mining district than
