Page images
PDF
EPUB

frequently from 9 to 22 livres tournois." The commerce of maize is in fact of great import. ance to the provinces of Guadalaxara, Valladolid, Guanaxuato, Mexico, San Luis Potosi, Vera Cruz, Puebla, and Oaxaca.

Thousands of mules arriving every week from Chihuahua and Durango to Mexico carry besides bars of silver, hides, tallow, some wine of Passo del Norte, and flour; and they take in return woollen cloth of the manufacture of Puebla and Queretaro, goods from Europe, and the Philippine Islands, iron, steel, and mercury. We have observed, in speaking of the communication between the coasts of the South Sea and Atlantic Ocean, that the introduction of camels would be exceedingly useful in Mexico. The table lands over which the great roads pass are not sufficiently elevated for the cold to be prejudicial to these animals; and they would suffer less than horses and mules from the aridity of the soil, and the want of water and pasturage to which the beasts of burden are exposed to the north of Guanaxuato, especially in the desert by which New Biscay is separated from New Mexico. Camels, which were still used in Spain even long after the destruction of the empire of the Moors, were introduced into Peruf

- * See vol. ii. p. 445.
f Garcilasso, t. ii. p. 326.

towards the end of the 16th century by Juan de Reinaga a Biscayan; but it appears that they

did not propagate there. Besides the govern

ment in those barbarous times was not favourable to the introduction of these useful animals, but yielded to the instances of the conquerors, (encomendores) who pretended that the multiplication of beasts of burden prevented them from hiring out the natives to travellers and merchants, for the purpose of carrying provisions and commodities in the interior of the country. In time of war, when the navigation round Cape Horn is attended with danger, a great part of the 80 thousand loads” (cargas) of cocoa annually exported from the port of Guayaquil, passes through the Isthmus of Panama and Mexico. The expence of carriage from Acapulco to Vera Cruz generally amounts to two piastrest per carga, and the preference is given to this road whenever the cocoa of Guayaquil costs at the Havannah more than 20 piastrest per fanega. The price of the purchase on the coast of Quito is generally from four to five piastres S ; the price at which it sells at Cadiz varies from 25 to 85 piastres” and notwithstanding the extreme length of the navigation round Cape Horn, the freight from Guayaquil to Spain does not exceed from seven to eight piastres f, the famega. The copper of Guasco known by the name of copper of Coquimbo frequently takes the same route as the cocoa of Guayaquil. This copper only costs at Chili six or seven piastres f per quintal; and the ordinary price at Cadiz is 20 piastres S.; but as in time of war it rises to 35 or 40, the merchants of Lima who carry on the trade in the productions of Chili, find it for their interest to send copper into Spain by Guayaquil, Acapulco, Vera Cruz, and the Havannah. These modes of communication which are very unnatural, will soon cease, whenever an active government willing to protect commerce, shall construct a good road from Panama to Portobello, and whenever the Isthmus shall be able to supply the necessary number of beasts of burden for the carriage of the productions of Quito, Peru, and Chili. The same reasons which induce the inhabitants of Guayaquil to send their cocoa in time

* One of these cargas contains 81 lib. ; and a famega weighs 110 lb. Castille weight.

f 8s. 5d. Trans.

# 5l. 4s. Trans.

§ From 16s. 10d. to ll. Is. Trans.

* From 5l. 5s. to 7l. 7s. Trans. + From ll. 9s. 5d. to ll. 13s. 7d. Trans. : ll. 5s. 2d. or ll. 9s. 5d. Trans. § 4l. 4s. Trans.

of war, through the kingdom of Mexico, prevail also on the merchants of Guatimala to send the indigoes of their country, which surpass in richness of colour all other known indigoes, by the way of Tehuantepec and the Rio Huasacualco to Vera Cruz. This is the place to speak more amply than we have already done “ of the project of a canal for the union of the two seas in the intendancy of Oaxaca, a plan which is every way worthy of fixing the attention of the government... " ' ' " . * Cortez, during his stay at Tenochtitlan had already perceived the great importance of the river of Huasacualcot, as is proved "by his third letter to the Emperor Charks V., dated from la Villa Segura de la Frontera, the 30th of October 1520. Warmly interested in discovering a safer port than that of Vera Cruz, or the passage from one ocean to another, which he calls the secret of a strait, the Spanish General demanded from Montezuma “ informa“tion relative to the state and configuration of “the eastern coast of the empire of Anahuac. “The monarch answered that he did not know “that coast himself, but that he would order

o

2 : * > . . . .

; : . “) of . . . . . " - * * * * * * * * * Vol. i. p. 23, vol. ii. p. 242. . . . . . . . oo # They write in Mexico indistinctly, Huasacualco, Guasacualco, and Goazocoalcos. Cortez, who corrupts all the Mexican names, calls it Quacalco. WOL, IV. C

“all the shore with its bays and rivers to “be painted, and that he would supply the “necessary guides to accompany the Spaniards “ destined to examine these countries. On “the morrow they brought to Cortez, a plan “of the whole coast represented on cloth. “The pilots recognized in this map the mouth “of a great river which they supposed to “be the same with the opening which they “ perceived in the coast, on their arrival at “Vera Cruz near the mountains of Sanmyn" “in the province of Mazamalco.” Guided by this information, Cortez dispatched in 1520 a small detachment of ten men, under the orders of Diego Ordaz, to reconnoitre this river. The pilots found the depth at the mouth only two fathoms and a half; but on ascending 12 leagues against the current, they discovered that the river was every where from five to six

* Perhaps these mountains are the chains of San Martin and the Volcan de Tustla. See vol. ii. p. 257, and Cartas de Hernan Cortez, p. 92 and 351. I have already stated that there exists at Mexico in the collection of hieroglyphic manuscripts preserved in the palace of the Viceroys, maps of the valley and lakes of Tenochtitlan, painted on cotton cloth by the Aztecs. I was also assured that the inhabitants of the village of Tetlama near Cuerna-vaca, as well as those of Tlascala, possess topographical plans executed before the conquest. Gomara quotes an itinerary map from Xicalanco to Nicaragua, which was drawn up by the inhabitants of

Tabasco, and presented to Cortez. Conquista de Mexico, fol. 100.

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »