Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 2.djvu/215

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POLITICAL DIVISIONS—PRODUCTIONS.
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270,000. The milder regions about Jalapa and Orizaba are more thickly peopled, than the comparatively sterile and sickly shores of the gulf. The population is composed of mixed races:—Creoles, Indians, Havanese, Foreigners, and a few Negroes.

The State of Vera Cruz is divided into four Departments and twelve districts, with 103 municipalities and 1,370 village jurisdictions.

1st. The Department of Jalapa, with two districts or cantons, viz:—1st, Jalapa, including the capital of that name,—thirty-one villages, fourteen haciendas and sixteen ranchos;—and 2d, Jalanzingo, with the towns of Perote and Jalanzingo, five villages, seven haciendas and thirty-three ranchos.

2d. The Department of Orizaba, with three districts or cantons: 1st, Orizaba, including the city of that name,—Sougolican, twenty-seven villages, six haciendas and fifty ranchos. 2d, Cordova, including the city of that name, and the towns of Coscomalepec and San Antonio Huatusco,—twenty villages, twenty-eight haciendas 237 ranchos,—and 3d, Cosamaloapan, with eight villages, five haciendas and forty-one ranchos.

3d. The Department of Vera Cruz with four districts or cantons: 1st, Vera Cruz, including the capital of that name, with Alvarado and Medellin, 21 haciendas, 149 estancias, and 600 ranchos. 2d, Misantla, with four villages, two haciendas, and thirty-four ranchos. 3d, Papantla, with thirteen villages, seven ranchos and the hacienda de Norias. 4th, Tampico, with Tampico and Panuco,—seven villages, thirty-nine haciendas and forty-one ranchos.

4th. The Department of Acayucam, with three districts or cantons:—1st, Acayucam, with the adjacent Acayucam and San Juan Olúta, nineteen villages, twelve haciendas, twenty-seven hatos and eleven ranchos. 2d, Huimanguillo, with twenty-one villages, one hacienda and nineteen ranchos. 3d, San Andres Tuxtla, with the adjacent San Andres and Santiago Tuxtla,—two villages, one hacienda, thirty-four hatos, and eight ranchos.

It is impossible in a description of this rich and varied State to sum up with accuracy what it produces either naturally or by introduction from abroad, for its genial climate, changed by the elevation of the interior portions of the State, renders it capable of yielding the fruits, the flowers, the grains, the woods, the vegetables and the animals of the temperate as well as of the torrid zone. Tobacco, coffee, sugar, cotton, corn, barley, wheat, jalap, sarsaparilla, vainilla, mameis, papayas, pine-apples, oranges, citrons, lemons, pomegranates, zapotes, bananas, chirimogas, aguacates,