In Sonora we shot blackbirds and jackrabbits, where grasses waved high as cornfields and the hills showed mineral values. The people at Hermosillo and Guaymas welcomed us as opening for them and their country the opportunities of a broader civilization. The rails were already laid for forty miles from Guaymas, which has a harbor more beautiful than California's Golden Gate.
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
A few days later we went out on the Mexican Central from El Paso to the end of the track, which was just then starting on its path toward the City of Mexico, to lift this great land of the Aztecs and its people into fellowship and commercial life with the "Big Brother" of the North. The future of Mexico seemed as clear as the sunshine, although Southern California seemed a doubtful proposition.
Returning to Boston, I published as follows, February 15, 1882, thirty-five years ago:—
No one realizes what government, or the absence of government, can do for a people until he sees Mexico, in comparison with the United States. Arizona and the Southwest, upon an almost waterless and comparatively barren soil, are prosperous from extensive grazing and min-
