The Building of the Mexican Railway
During the first week of January, 1873, the Mexican government took time off for festivities. President Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada made a gala tour from Mexico City to Veracruz and back again amid the welcoming shouts of minor officials, Mexican gentry, and Indians. In Veracruz a guard of honor conducted Lerdo through triumphal arches to his home, and the night was given over to "victores, muisicas y otras demostraciones." After two days of official visits and inspections, the president left again for Mexico City, punctuating his trip with stops at C6rdoba and Orizaba for more celebrating, and the festivities continued for several days after his arrival in the capital.' This official junket celebrated the inauguration of Mexico's first major railroad. This was a 420-kilometer line of single track that twisted around mountains, through tunnels, and along the edge of frightening chasms down from Mexico City to Veracruz. However steep its grade and sharp its curves, in its day the railroad was an engineer's miracle, and it soon proved the practicability and profit of railroad-building in Mexico. Well might President Lerdo and his loyal cohorts order out the military bands and the fireworks, for he was inaugurating not merely a set of tracks but an era. Nineteenth-century tourists to Mexico carried away with them the memory of execrable roads and wretched travel conditions. The road from Jalapa to Puebla, wrote William P. Robertson, "in some parts, was terrific, for though paved, the large blocks of stone were every where loosened, and lying about; while great holes and ruts sent us jumping, every now and then, towards the roof of the coach. . .2 Unless the traveler made his trip on horseback, he had to choose between a litter and a coach. Suspended on poles between two mules, the Mexican litera was a coffin-like box in which the unfortunate occupant lay on his back, partly cushioned from shocks by a well-worn mattress and pro-