CHARACTER OF THE MEXICAN INDIAN. 65

religions and different governments of the two countries in former times. This energy is dis

played particularly by the inhabitants of Tlascala. In the midst of their present degradation, the descendants of the citizens of that republic are still to be distinguished by a certain haughtiness of character, inspired by the memory of their former grandeur.

The Americans, like the Hindoos and other nations who have long groaned under a civil and military despotism, adhere to their customis, manners, and opinions, with extraordinary obstinacy*. I say opinions; for the introduction of Christianity has produced little other effect on the Indians of

* It is of the utmost importance to the prosperity and security of the great undertaking which now occupies so large a share of the public attention, that all the Officers and Servants sent out by the Mining Companies of England should observe the most inviolable respect for the religious opinions and institutions of the natives. The Protestant opinions of Englishmen are sufficiently obnoxious, without being called into notice by any injudicious and absurd and fruitless attempts at conversion. How totally these attempts have failed to produce any thing but disgust among the Hindoos, to whom the Baron de Humboldt here compares the Mexican Indians, is well known to every calm and well-informed man in our Eastern possessions.

If the utility and policy of agitating such a source of discord, where we are undisputed masters, may be questioned, we presume it will be admitted by all but fanatics, that it would be little short of insanity to do it in a country where our establishments will stand in need of the countenance and protection of all classes. We have pressed this subject the more warmly

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Mexico than to substitute new ceremonies, the symbols of a gentle and humane religion, to the ceremonies of a sanguinary worship. This change from old to new rites was the effect of constraint, and not of persuasion, and was produced by political events alone. In the new continent, as well as in the old, half-civilized nations were accustomed to receive from the hands of the conqueror new laws and new divinities; and the vanquished Indian gods appeared to them to yield to the gods of the strangers.

Accustomed to a long slavery, as well under the domination of their own sovereigns as under that of the first conquerors, the natives of Mexico patiently suffer the vexations to which they are frequently exposed from the Whites. They oppose to them only cunning, veiled under the most deceitful appearances of apathy and stupidity. As the Indian can very rarely revenge himself on the Spaniards, he delights in making common cause with them for the oppression of his own fellow citizens. Oppressed for ages, and compelled to a blind obedience, he wishes to tyrannize in his turn. The Indian villages are governed by magistrates of

upon our readers, as we know that among many of the inferior Officers, the motive to the course of action so earnestly depre cated will be found in peculiar force. However we may respect the disinterestedness of this motive, we are bound to repeat, that the safety of our establishments is absolutely dependant on caution and forbearance on this point.

CHARACTER OF THE MEXICAN INDIAN.

67

the copper-coloured race; and an Indian alcade exercises his power with so much the greater severity, because he is sure of being supported by the priest or the Spanish subdelegado. Oppression produces every where the same effects; it every where corrupts the morals.

As the Indians almost all of them belong to the class of peasantry and labourers, it is not easy to judge of their aptitude for the arts which embellish life. I know no race of men who appear more destitute of imagination. When an Indian attains a certain degree of civilization, he displays a great facility of apprehension, a judicious mind, a natural logic, and a particular disposition to subtilize or seize the finest differences in the comparison of objects. He reasons coolly and methodically; but he never manifests that versatility of imagination, that glow of sentiment, and that creative and animating spirit, which characterize the nations of the south of Europe, and several tribes of African Negros. I deliver this opinion, however, with great diffidence. We cannot be too circumspect, in pronouncing on the moral or intellectual dispositions of nations from which we are separated by the multiplied obstacles resulting from a difference in language, and in manners and customs.

The Indians of New Spain, those at least subject to the European domination, generally attain to a pretty advanced age. As peaceable cultivators, and inhabitants of villages, they are not ex

posed to the accidents attending the wandering life of the hunters and warriors of the Mississippi and the savannas of the Rio Gila. Accustomed to uniform nourishment of an almost entirely vegetable nature, that of their maize and cereal gramina, the Indians would undoubtedly attain very great longevity if their constitutions were not weakened by drunkenness. Their intoxicating liquors are rum, a fermentation of maize and the root of the jatropha, and especially the wine of the country, made of the juice of the agave americana, called pulque. This last liquor is nutritive, on account of the undecomposed sugar which it contains. Many Indians addicted to pulque take, for a long time, very little solid nourishment. When used with moderation it is very salutary, and, by fortifying the stomach, assists the functions of the gastric system.

The vice of drunkenness is, however, less general among the Indians than is generally believed. There are several Indian tribes very sober, whose fermented beverages are too weak to intoxicate. In New Spain drunkenness is most common among the Indians who inhabit the valley of Mexico, and the environs of Puebla and Tlascala, wherever the maguey or agave is cultivated on a great scale. The police in the city of Mexico sends round tumbrils, to collect the drunkards to be found stretched out in the streets. These Indians, who are treated like dead bodies, are carried to the

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principal guard-house. In the morning an iron ring is put round their ancles, and they are made to clear the streets for three days. On letting them go on the fourth day, they are sure to find several of them in the course of the week. It is to be hoped that this evil will diminish, as civilization advances.

We are tempted to compare together the extent and population of Mexico, and that of two empires with which this fine colony is in relations of union and of rivalry. Spain is five times smaller than Mexico. Should no unforeseen misfortunes occur, we may reckon that in less than a century the population of New Spain will equal that of the mother country. The United States of North America since the cession of Louisiana, and since they recognise no other boundary than the RioBravo del Norte, contain 2,160,000 square miles. Their population is not much greater than that of Mexico, as we shall see on examining the population and the area of New Spain.

If the political force of two states depended solely on the space which they occupy on the globe, and on the number of their inhabitants; if the nature of the soil, the configuration of the coast, and if the climate, the energy of the nation, and above all the degree of perfection of its social institutions, were not the principal elements of this grand dynamical calculation, the kingdom of New

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