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001 77881
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010 _a02023140
040 _aUtSlPG
041 7 _aen
_2iso639-1
050 4 _aF1201
100 1 _aBishop, William Henry,
_d1847-1928
245 1 0 _aOld Mexico and her lost provinces
264 1 _aSalt Lake City, UT :
_bProject Gutenberg,
_c2026
300 _a1 online resource :
_bmultiple file formats
336 _atext
_btxt
_2rdacontent
337 _acomputer
_bc
_2rdamedia
338 _aonline resource
_bcr
_2rdacarrier
500 _aRelease date is 2026-02-07
508 _aPeter Becker and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
520 _a"Old Mexico and her lost provinces" by William Henry Bishop is a travel narrative written in the late 19th century. It traces an American observer’s journey through Mexico—approached via Cuba—and onward to the former Mexican territories in the American Southwest, blending firsthand reportage with history, politics, and local color. The work dwells on railways, commerce, cities, landscapes, and daily life in a nation rapidly modernizing under new economic schemes and foreign capital. The opening of Old Mexico and her lost provinces follows Bishop’s departure from New York by steamer to Havana, where he samples tropical life, visits Matanzas and a sugar plantation, notes corruption scandals and the lottery, and records talk of the long Cuban insurgency. He transfers to a French packet for Vera Cruz, arrives after a “norther,” and sketches the perilous roadstead, somber San Juan de Ulúa, and a city of tiled domes, zopilotes, and bullfight bills, along with a consul’s argument that yellow fever is epidemic but not contagious and the labyrinth of Mexican tariffs. Boarding the English-built railway at night, he ascends from the Tierra Caliente with a vivid cast—a flamboyantly dressed hacendado and a French bridal pair—through the Metlac gorge, past Orizaba at sunrise, Holy Saturday Judas effigies, pulque country at Apam, and the pyramids of Teotihuacan, before reaching the high basin of Mexico City and its alkali-ringed lakes. He then maps the capital’s core: the Zócalo and cathedral on the Aztec war-god’s former site, arcaded streets, serapes and rebozos, Indian vendors, and the persistent drainage problem of Lake Texcoco. Excursions to Chapultepec and the Paseo de la Reforma frame his sense of the city’s future growth, while his hotel courtyard swarms with “projectors”—foreign engineers, financiers, and promoters (with General Grant among them)—planning railways, banks, and industries. The section closes with reflections on American–Mexican perceptions, the 1847 invasion, and the internal divisions that once hobbled Mexico’s defense. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
534 _pOriginally published:
_cNew York: Harper & brothers, 1883
653 _aCalifornia -- Description and travel
653 _aArizona -- Description and travel
653 _aMexico -- Description and travel
856 4 _uhttps://archive.org/details/oldmexicoherlost1883bish
856 4 0 _uhttps://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77881
999 _c118601
_d118601