be at war. He is well satisfied with England, at least when talking with an American, though I doubt not he will set forth all those American arguments as to Britain's conditions and needs when he gets back to "Our Old Home," and will forget, perhaps, to put in the quotation marks. He is doing an excellent work here in planting the Bible over the land.
The last who mounts the horse, and who rides muy mal (you do not know but that that means very good, and I shall not tell you that it means very bad), is not, perhaps, representing his fellow-ministers so much in their horse-riding reputation as in eating and enduring. He is seeking out this land for the Church, as his associates are for the Bible and the railway, a threefold cord which is not easily broken, and which will yet make this beautiful clime "bound with gold chains about the feet of God."
The road ascends the mountain side. For two thousand feet and two leagues it winds and climbs. The basin of Pachuca lies below, soft in the brown morning, yet unkissed of the sun, which yellows the eastern sky, but does not glow upon its mountain-tops. The green trees, flowers, and maguey plant make a garden of beauty of that basin, lying low in the hollow of treeless hills, "rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun." It is less luxuriant than the woods and ferns of the Hot Lands, but its contrast with the inclosing hill sides and the brisk September air makes its verdant loveliness all the more lovely.
The mountains are without forest, but a purple verdure covers them—a royal mantle of sunlight and shadow, dewy, tender, velvety. Not since I looked on Hymettus and Pentelicus have I seen such a rich hue clothe barren mountains. The composition of the rock has something to do with it; the purple of porphyry imparts its color to the hills.
Iztaccihuatl glitters on the point of its snowy lance. There is some debate as to which of the three ice mountains it is, and so the poet of the company—for "we keeps our poet," like Day & Martin—breaks forth in rhymes on each of the trio. First, he exclaims,
