STATISTICAL } VII. Intendancy of Oaxaca. beginning of the conquest. Thiery de Menonville only assigns 6000 inhabitants to it; but by the enumeration in 1792 it was found to contain Population. 24,000 Tehuantepec or Teguantepeque, a port situated in the bottom of the creek, formed by the ocean between the small villages of San Francisco, San Dionisio, and Santa Maria de la Mar. This port, impeded by a very dangerous bar, will become one day of great consequence when navigation in general, and especially the transport of the indigo of Guatimala, shall become more frequent by the Rio Guasacualco. San Antonio de los Cues, a very populous place on the road from Orizaba to Oaxaca, celebrated for the remains of ancient Mexican fortifications. The mines of this intendancy worked with the greatest care are, Villalta, Zolaga, Yxtepexi, and Totomostla. THIS intendancy, concerning which valuable information has been furnished to us by M. Gilbert*, comprehends the great peninsula of Yucatan, situated between the bays of Campeche and Honduras. It is at Cape Catoche, fifty-one leagues distant from the calcareous hills of Cape Saint Antony, that Mexico appears before the irruption of the ocean to have been joined to the island of Cuba. The province of Merida is bounded on the south by the kingdom of Guatimala, on the east * This enlightened observer went over a great part of the Spanish colonies. He had the misfortune to lose in a shipwreck south from the island of Cuba, among the shallows of the Jardins du Roi, of which I determined the astronomical position, the statistical materials collected by him. It is proper to observe here, that without knowing the data of which I was in possession, Mr. Gilbert, by estimating himself the number of villages and their population, concluded that Yucatan contained, in 1801, nearly half a million of inhabitants of all casts and colours. STATISTICAL } VIII. Intendancy of Merida. by the intendancy of Vera Cruz, from which it is. separated by the Rio Baraderas, called also the river of Crocodiles (Lagartos); on the west by the English establishments which extend from the mouth of the Rio Hondo to the north of the bay of Hanover, opposite the island of Ubero (Ambergris key). In this quarter Salamanca, or the small fort of San Felipe de Bacalar, is the most southern point inhabited by the Spaniards. The peninsula of Yucatan, of which the northern coast from Cape Catoche, near the island of Contoy, to the Punta de Piedras (a length of81 leagues), follows exactly the direction of the current of rotation, is a vast plain intersected in its interior from north-west to south-west by a chain of hills of small elevation. The country which extends east from these hills towards the bays of the Ascension and Santo Spirito appears to be the most fertile, and was earliest inhabited. The ruins of European edifices discoverable in the island Cosumel, in the midst of a grove of palm trees, indicate that this island, which is now uninhabited, was at the commencement of the conquest peopled by Spanish colonists. Since the settlement of the English between Omo and Rio Hondo, the government, to diminish the contraband trade, concentrated the Spanish and Indian population in the part of the peninsula west from the mountains of Yuca STATISTICAL VIII. Intendancy of Merida. ANALYSIS. tan. Colonists are not permitted to settle on the western coast*, on the banks of the Rio Bacalar and Rio Hondo. All this vast country remains uninhabited, with the exception of the military post (presidio) of Salamanca. The intendancy of Merida is one of the warmest and yet one of the healthiest of equinoxial America. This salubrity ought undoubtedly to be attributed in Yucatan as well as at Coro, Cumana, and the island of Marguerite, to the extreme dryness of the soil and atmosphere. On the whole coast from Campeche, or from the mouth of the Rio de San Francisco to Cape Catoche, the navigator does not find a single spring of fresh water. Near this cape nature has repeated the same phenomenon which appears in the island of Cuba in the bay of Xagua, described by me in another placet. On the northern coast of Yucatan, at the mouth of the Rio Lagartos, 400 metres from the shore, springs of fresh water spout up from amidst the salt water. These remarkable springs are called the mouths (boccas) de Conil. It is probable, that from some strong hydrostatical pression, the fresh water, after bursting through the banks * Evidently eastern coast. Trans. + In my Tableaux de la Nature, vol. II. p. 174 and 235. 1312 feet. Trans. STATISTICAL } VIII. Intendancy of Merida. of calcarious rock between the clefts of which it had flowed, rises above the level of the salt water. The Indians of this intendancy speak the Maya language, which is extremely guttural, and of which there are four tolerably complete diction aries by Pedro Beltan, Andres de Avendano, Fray Antonio de Ciudad-Real, and Luis de Villalpando. The peninsula of Yucatan was never subject to the Mexican or Aztec kings. However, the first conquerors Bernal Diaz, Hernandez de Cordova, and the valorous Juan de Grixalva, were struck with the advanced civilization of the inhabitants of this peninsula. They found houses built of stone cemented with lime, pyramidal edifices (teocallis) which they compared to Moorish mosques, fields enclosed with hedges, and the people clothed, civilized, and very different from the natives of the island of Cuba*. Many ruins, particularly of sepulchral monuments (guacas), are still to be discovered to the east of the small central chain of mountains. Several Indian tribes have preserved their independence * Bernal Diaz adjudged the palm of superior civilization to the natives of Yucatan, because he found" sus verguenças cubiertas." Tuvimos los, says he, por hombres mas de razon que a los Indios de Cuba. Why? porque andavan los de Cuba con sus verguenças de fuera! Hist. Verd. folio 2. col.3. Trans. |