tude is about three thousand five hundred feet above sea level, and the climate bears a strong resemblance to that of the table-lands of Mexico. The same irrigating ditches, lined on either side by stately cotton-wood trees, are serving the same purpose as when first constructed by the Jesuit missionaries, more than three hundred years ago. A circle of mountains to the north and east affords protection to the city from the sharp, penetrating winds that sweep over Texas from the plains of Kansas.
El Paso can boast of excellent hotels, the best being the Grand Central, and the possession of the only international street railway bridge in the world; also an interesting old church about three hundred years old. The greatest drawbacks, as a place of residence, are the clouds and columns of dust that for a great part of the year drive through the streets, entering the houses, and penetrating every nook and cranny.
The old town of Paso del Norte is the Mexican El Paso, as Nuevo Laredo is the Mexican Laredo. Each one is a necessary complement to the other. Paso del Norte has, however, great advantage in point of age, having been founded about the year 1680. The town to-day bears the imprint of all Mexican architecture. The cathedral, once a stately and imposing structure, even now, when bereft of the greater part of its interior adornments, speaks volumes of the lapse and the inroads of time. The nave, chancel, altar, and ceilings bear traces of exquisite and masterly workmanship, but tell a mournful tale of decay and faded grandeur.
The famous grapes that are grown at Paso del Norte are perhaps the most prolific and delicious known to us, and in that genial soil, where irrigation is so skillfully employed, they are produced in quantities, and shipped to all parts of the country.
Curious fences inclose the farms and gardens—a boxing of cotton wood poles filled in with mud or an earthen cement, making not only a secure, but a durable fence.
The country for perhaps two hundred miles on the west side of the Rio Bravo is but a counterpart of its neighbor, on the east or Texas side, for the same distance. Chihuahua, the first city on the Mexican
