APPENDIX A.
I hereby certify that I am intimately acquainted with the road between Vera Cruz and Puebla, and thence to Acapulco.
Having been engaged in mercantile business at Puebla for the last seven years, I am intimately acquainted with every mile of this road, having, from the nature of my business, been compelled often to travel over the whole route, and am therefore free to say that the whole distance can be travelled in stage-coaches without any impediment—this road being free from robbers—and will require only an expenditure of from $25,000 to $30,000, to make it equal to any stage route in the United States; and at this time, without the expenditure of even a single dollar, the whole distance can be travelled in stage-coaches, with the exception of about thirteen leagues, with the utmost facilityand expedition. The mail is now taken from Vera Cruz to Acapulco in sixty hours, which time will be shortly reduced to fifty hours; and this distance can be regularly travelled with the mail coaches in that space of time the whole year round.
J. BLUMENKRON.
City of New York,November 22, 1853.