siderable cities. Their mean height equals that of Puy de Dôme in Auvergne, and they are near 90 miles in length, extending to the foot of the metalliferous mountains of Guanaxuato.

In the midst of so many advantages bestowed by nature upon New Spain, it suffers in general, like Old Spain, from the want of water and navigable rivers.

In the whole equinoctial part of Mexico there are only small rivers, the mouths of which are of considerable size. The narrow form of the continent prevents the collection of a great mass of water. The rapid declivity of the Cordillera abounds more properly with torrents than rivers. Mexico is in the same state with Peru, where the Andes approach so near to the coast as to occasion the aridity of the neighbouring plains. Among the small number of rivers in the southern part of New Spain, the only ones which may in time become interesting for internal commerce are, 1. The Rio Guasacualco, and the Rio Alvarado, both to the south-east of Vera Cruz, and adapted for facilitating the communication with the kingdom of Guatimala; 2. The Rio de Moctezuma, which carries the waters of the lakes and valley of Tenochtitlan to the Rio de Panuco, and by which, forgetting that Mexico is elevated above 7,000 feet above the level of the sea, a navigation has been projected between the capital and the western coast; 3. The Rio de Zacatula; 4. The great

river of Santiago, formed by the junction of the rivers. Lerma and las Laxas, which might carry the flour of Salamanca, Zelaya, and perhaps the whole intendancy of Guadalaxara, to the port of San Blas, or the coast of the Pacific Ocean.

The lakes with which Mexico abounds, the greater part of which appear annually on the decline, are merely the remains of immense basins of water, which appear to have formerly existed on the high and extensive plains of the Cordillera. We shall merely mention the great lake of Chapala in New Gallicia, of nearly 1,400 square miles, double the size of the lake of Constance; the lakes of the valley of Mexico, which include a fourth part of its surface; the lake of Patzcuaro, in the intendancy of Valladolid, one of the most picturesque situations which I know in either continent; and the lakes of Mextitlan and Parras in New Biscay.

The roads of Mexico are either carried along the central table-land itself, from Oaxaca to Santa Fe, or they lead from the table-land towards the coast. The former serve to carry on a communication between the towns on the ridge of the mountains, in the coldest and most populous region of the kingdom; the latter are destined for foreign commerce, and for the intercourse which subsists between the interior and the ports of Vera Cruz and Acapulco: they also facilitate an exchange between the productions of the mountains.

ROADS-MODES OF CONVEYANCE.

17

and the burning plains of the coast. of the table-land running from the S.S.E. to the N.N.W., which from the general configuration of the country we might call longitudinal, are very easily kept up. We shall not repeat in this place what we have already stated, relative to the extent and continuity of the high plains of Anahuac, where we find neither fissure nor ravine, and to the progressive fall of the table-land from 8,200 to 2,600 feet of absolute height. Carriages may run from Mexico to Santa Fe, in an extent exceeding the length which the chain of the Alps would have, if prolonged without interruption from Geneva to the shores of the Black Sea. In fact, the central table-land is crossed in all directions in four-wheel carriages, from the capital to Guanaxuato, Durango, Chihuahua, Valladolid, Guadalaxara, and Perote; but in the present bad state of the roads, waggons are not established for the conveyance of goods. The inhabitants give the preference to the employment of beasts of burden ; and thousands of horses and mules in long files (requas) cover the roads of Mexico. A considerable number of Mestizoes and Indians are employed to conduct these caravans. Preferring a wandering life to any sedentary occupation, they pass the night in the open air, or in sheds, (tambos, or casas de communidad,) which are constructed in the middle of the villages for the convenience of travellers. The mules feed at liberty in the

plains of the coast. The roads

D

savannahs; but when the great droughts have parched up the grass, the drivers feed them on maize either in herb (zacate), or in grain.

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.

The roads which lead from the interior tableland to the coasts, and which I call transversal, are the most difficult, and chiefly deserve the attention of Government. The roads from Mexico to Vera Cruz and Acapulco, from Zacatecas to New Santander, from Guadalaxara to San Blas, from Valladolid to the port of Colima, and from Durango to Mazatlan passing by the western branch of the Sierra Madre, all belong to this class. The roads by which the capital carries on a communication with the ports of Acapulco and Vera Cruz, are of course the most frequented. The value of the precious metals, of the agricultural productions, and of the goods of Europe and Asia which flow through these two channels, amounts to the total sum of nearly 14,000,0007. sterling per annum. These treasures pass along a road which resembles that of Airolo at the hospital of

TO ACAPULCO AND VERA CRUZ.

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Saint Gothard. From the village of Vigas to L'Encero, the road to Vera Cruz is frequently nothing but a narrow and crooked path, and the most difficult, perhaps, in all America, with the exception of that by which the goods of Europe are transported from Honda to Santa Fe de Bogota, and from Guayaquil to Quito.

The productions from the Philippine Islands and Peru, arrive by the road from Mexico to Acapulco. It is carried along a less rapid slope of the Cordilleras, than the road leading from the capital to Vera Cruz. In the European road we remain, from the valley of Mexico to beyond Perote, on the central plain, at an elevation of 7,550 feet above the level of the ocean; and from that village we descend with extreme rapidity to the ravine of the Plan del Rio, to the west of Rinconada. On the other hand, on the road from Acapulco, which we designate by the name of the Asiatic Road, the descent begins at a distance of twenty-four miles from Mexico, on the southern slope of the basaltic mountain of Guarda.

The construction and embellishment of a new road from Mexico to the port of Vera Cruz has latterly become the object of the solicitude of Government. A fortunate rivalry is displayed between the new Council of Commerce established at Vera Cruz, under the name of Real tribunal del consulado, and the old Consulado of the capital; and the latter is gradually beginning to shake off