STATISTICAL }II. Intendancy of Puebla. thickness as the baobab (Adansonia digitata) of the Senegal. The district of the old republic of Tlaxcalla, inhabited by Indians jealous of their privileges, and very much inclined to civil dissensions, has for a long time formed a particular government. I have indicated it in my general map of New Spain as still belonging to the intendancy of Puebla; but by a recent change in the financial administration, Tlaxcalla and Guautla de las Hamilpas were united to the intendancy of Mexico, and Tlapa and Ygualapa separated from it. There were in 1793, in the intendancy of Puebla, without including the four districts of Tlaxcalla, Guautla, Ygualapa, and Tlapa: Result of the total enumeration, 508,028 souls, * See as to the antiquity of the vegetable species my memoir on the physiognomy of plants, in my Tableaux de la Nature, tom. II. p. 108 and 137. STATISTICAL II. Intendancy of Puebla. ANALYSIS. distributed into 6 cities, 133 parishes, 607 villages, 425 farms (haciendas), 886 solitary houses (ranchos), and 33 convents, two thirds of which are for monks. The government of Tlaxcalla contained in 1793 a population of 59, 177 souls, whereof 21,849 were male and 21,029 female Indians. The boasted privileges of the citizens of Tlaxcallan are reducible to the three following points; 1. The town is governed by a cacique and four Indian alcaldes, who represent the ancient heads of the four quarters, still called Tecpectipac, Ocotelolco, Quiahutztlan, and Tizatlan. These alcaldes are under the dependance of an Indian governor, who is himself subject to the Spanish intendant. 2. The whites have no seat in the municipality, in virtue of a royal cedula of the 16th April, 1585; and 3. The cacique, or Indian governor, enjoys the honours of an alferez real. The district of Cholula contained in 1793 a population of 22,423 souls. The villages amounted to 42, and the farms to 45. Cholula, Tlaxcalla, and Huetxocingo, are the three republics which resisted the Mexican yoke for so many centuries, although the pernicious aristocracy of their constitution left the lower people little more freedom than they would have possessed under the government of the Aztec kings. STATISTICAL II. Intendancy of Puebla. } ANALYSIS. The progress of the industry and prosperity of this province has been extremely slow, notwithstanding the active zeal of an intendant equally enlightened and respectable, Don Manuel de Flon, who lately inherited the title of Count de la Cadena. The flour trade, formerly very flou rishing, has suffered much from the enormous price of carriage from the Mexican table-land to the Havannah, and especially from the want of beasts of burden. The commerce which Puebla carried on till 1710 with Peru in hats and delft ware has entirely ceased. But the greatest obstacle to the public prosperity arises from four fifths of the whole property (fincas) belonging to mortmain proprietors; that is to say, to com. munities of monks, to chapters, corporations, and hospitals. The intendancy of Puebla has very considerable salt-works near Chila, Xicotlan, and Ocotlan (in the district of Chiautla), as also near Zapotitlan. The beautiful marble, known by the name of Puebla marble, which is preferable to that of Bizaron, and the Real del Doctor, is procured in the quarries of Totamehuacan and Tecali, at two and seven leagues distance from the capital of the intendancy. The carbonate of lime of Tecali is transparent, like the gypsous STATISTICAL II. Intendancy of Puebla. ANALYSIS. alabaster of Volterra and the Phengites of the ancients. The indigenous of this province speak three languages totally different from one another, the Mexican, Totonac, and Tlapanec. The first is peculiar to the inhabitants of Puebla, Cholula, and Tlascalla; the second to the inhabitants of Zacatlan; and the third is preserved in the environs of Tlapa. The most remarkable towns of the intendancy of Puebla are: La Puebla de los Angeles, the capital of the intendancy, more populous than Lima, Quito, Santa Fe, and Caraccas; and after Mexico, Guanaxuato, and the Havannah, the most considerable city of the Spanish colonies of the new continent. La Puebla is one of the small number of American towns founded by European colonists; for in the plain of Acaxete, or Cuitlaxcoapan, on the spot where the capital of the province now stands, there were only in the beginning of the 16th century a few huts inhabited by Indians of Cholula. The privilege of the town of Puebla is dated 28th Sept. 1531. The consumption of STATISTICAL II. Intendancy of Puebla. the inhabitants in 1802 amounted to 52,951 cargas (of 300 pounds each) of wheaten flour, and 36,000 cargas of maize. Height of the ground at the Plaza-Mayor 2196 metres*. Tlascalla is so much reduced from its ancient grandeur, that it scarcely contains3400 inhabitants, among whom there are not more than 900 Indians of pure extraction. Yet Hernan Cortez found a population in this place which appeared to him greater than that of Grenada. Cholula, called by Cortez† Churul * 7381 feet. Trans. Population. 67,800 3,400 + This great conquistador, with a simplicity of style for which his writings are characterised, draws a curious picture of the old town of Cholula—" The inhabitants of this city," says he, in his third letter to the emperor Charles the Fifth, are better clothed than any we have hitherto seen. People in easy circumstances wear cloaks (albornoces) above their dress. These cloaks differ from those of Africa, for they have pockets, though the cut, cloth, and fringes are the same. The environs of the city are very fertile and well cultivated. Almost all the fields may be watered, and the city is much more beautiful than all those in Spain, for it is well fortified, and built on very level ground. I can assure your highness, that from the top of a mosque (mesquita, by which Cortez designates the teocalli) I reckoned more than |