Bitterly cold was it when we took our places in the diligencia, the morning we bade adieu to scowling Peroté, after having a desayuno of coffee and chocolate, and a small roll, brought in compassionately by one of the mozos, for, of course, our-poor princesa was still locked in slumber.

We rolled heavily through the gloomy, lifeless streets, which echoed with the tramp, tramp, of our eight mules. Most magnificently shone the stars, like so many diamond moons; but they looked almost as cold as ourselves. On we went, through the star-lit, piercing, chilly atmosphere, between ten and eleven thousand feet, or thereabouts, above the sea.

At last the pale grey of morning became visible, and soon after uprose the glorious welcome sun, and showed us that we were on the heights of the pass, and about to descend through the woods of shadowing pine. Now then, for all the climates of the world, “succeeding each other in layers” to use Baron Humboldt's well-known expression in describing Mexico. For the visitor to this Land of Marvels, the traveller in these magical regions, in the course of a couple of days (and it is possible to do the same thing in a far less space of time – perhaps in some parts in a couple of hours), may cast his eye over the whole scale of the earth's varied vegetation, from the Tropics' gorgeous and dazzling parasitical plants, to the sombre firs and pines of the Arctic Circle.