able home of Dr. and Mrs. Charles Tarver terminated, and the journey to the capital continued.
Jimenez is the first station, situated in the midst of a vast plain, and contains but one or two solitary houses. Parral, a fine mining district, is about fifty miles distant, and has already attracted the attention of American enterprise.
Villa Lerdo is the next station; the town proper, however, is located about two miles distant, but conveyances are always there to transport passengers on the arrival of trains, and the railroad company has a fine eating-house there. It is located in the State of Durango, in the "Laguna Country," generally known as the best cotton-producing region, the soil and climate being so favorable that the plants need renewal only once in several years. From thirty to forty thousand bales of cotton are annually shipped.
The capital of the State is Durango, more than one hundred miles away.
After leaving Villa Lerdo, we have more green valleys, more water, and stronger evidences of the fertility of the country. Both the types of people and the face of the country change as we go farther inland. More of the pure Indian blood is visible.
Boundary landmarks are seen on either side of the railway, two or three feet high, built of adobe or stone, and having octagonal-shaped, bright-painted caps. They more resembled grim tombstones, leaving off the colored caps, than the purpose for which they were constructed.
As we speed along the vast table-lands, over the smooth broad-gauge Central, all looks restful in its solitude. But such dreary stretches of country, without apparently an inhabitant! Now and then an Indian, black as charcoal, stands motionless, crook in hand, in the midst of his little flock, gazing at the swiftly advancing and receding train—his big hat tilted back, framing his face—his clothing of manta giving him a ghost-like appearance.
For centuries the table-lands have been the chief highways and avenues of commerce. They are strangely modeled, and extend over a territory perhaps fifty to one hundred miles in width from El Paso
