There are swamps, dark and dank, overshadowed by the tall cypress, with its pendent streamers of silvery moss (_Tillandsia usneoides_).

From these arise the miasma--the mother of the dreaded "vomito." This unhealthy region is but thinly inhabited; but here you meet with people of the African race, and nowhere else in Mexico.

In the towns-- and there are but few--you see the yellow mulatto, and the pretty quadroon with her black waving hair; but in the spare settlements of the country you meet with a strange race--the cross of the negro with the ancient inhabitants of the country--the "zamboes." Along the coast and in the black country, behind Vera Cruz, you will find these people living a half-indolent, half-savage life, as small cultivators, cattle-herds, fishermen, or hunters.

In riding through the forest you may often chance upon such a picture as the following:-- There is an opening in the woods that presents an aspect of careless cultivation--a mere patch cleared out of the thick jungle--upon which grow yams, the sweet-potato (_Convolvulus batata_), chile, melons, and the calabash.

On one side of the clearing there is a hut--a sort of shed.