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STATISTICAL

ANALYSIS. IX. Intendancy of Vera Cruz.

of their verdure that this is the elevation at which the clouds suspended over the ocean come in contact with the basaltic summits of the Cordillera. A little higher, near la Blanderilla, the nutritive fruit of the banana tree comes no longer to maturity. In this foggy and cold region, therefore, want spurs on the Indian to labour and excites his industry. At the height of San Miguel pines begin to mingle with the oaks, which are found by the traveller as high as the elevated plains of Perote, where he beholds the delightful aspect of fields sown with wheat. Eight hundred metres higher the coldness of the climate will no longer admit of the vegetation of oaks; and pines alone there cover the rocks, whose summits enter the zone of eternal snow. Thus in a few hours the naturalist in this miraculous country ascends the whole scale of vegetation from the heliconia and the banana plant, whose glossy leaves swell out into extraordinary dimensions, to the stunted parenchyma of the resinous trees!

The province of Vera Cruz is enriched by nature with the most precious productions. At the foot of the Cordillera, in the ever-green forests of Papantla, Nautla, and S. Andre Tuxtla, grows the epidendrum vanilla, of which the odoriferous fruit is employed for perfuming chocolate. The beautiful convolvulus jalapa grows near the Indian

STATISTICAL IX. Intendancy of Veră Cruz. }

ANALYSIS.

villages of Colipa and Misantla, of which the tuberose root furnishes the jalap, one of the most energetic and beneficent purgatives. The myrtle (myrtus pimenta), of which the grain forms an agreeable spice, well known in trade by the name of pimienta de Tabasco, is produced in the forests which extend towards the river of Baraderas, in the eastern part of the intendancy of Vera Cruz. The cocoa of Acayucan would be in request if the natives were to apply themselves more assiduously to the cultivation of cocoa trees. On the eastern and southern declivities of the Pic d'Orizaba, in the vallies which extend towards the small town of Cordoba, tobacco of an excellent quality is cultivated, which yields an annual revenue to the crown of more than 18 millions of francs *. The similax, of which the root is the true salsaparilla, grows in the humid and umbrageous ravins of the Cordillera. The cotton of the coast of Vera Cruz is celebrated for its fineness and whiteness. The sugar-cane yields nearly as much sugar as in the island of Cuba, and more than in the plantations of St. Domingo.

This intendancy alone would keep alive the commerce of the port of Vera Cruz, if the number of colonists was greater, and if their laziness, the

* 750,060. sterling. Trans.

STATISTICAL
ANALYSIS.

} IX. Intendancy of Vera Cruz.

effect of the bounty of nature, and the facility of providing without effort for the most urgent wants of life, did not impede the progress of industry. The old population of Mexico was concentrated in the interior of the country on the table-land. The Mexican tribes who came from northern countries, as we have already explained, gave the preference in their migrations to the ridges of the Cordilleras, because they found on them a climate analogous to that of their native country. No doubt, on the first arrival of the Spaniards on the coast of Chalchiuhcuecan (Vera Cruz), all the country from the river of Papaloapan (Alvarado to Huaxtecapan), was better inhabited and better cultivated than it now is. However, the conquerors found as they ascended the table-land the villages closer together, the fields divided into smaller portions, and the people more polished. The Spaniards, who imagined they founded new cities when they gave European names to Aztec cities, followed the traces of the indigenous civilization. They had very powerful motives for inhabiting the tableland of Anahuac. They dreaded the heat and the diseases which prevail in the plains. The search after the precious metals, the cultivation of European grain and fruit, the analogy of the climate with that of the Castilles, and the other causes indicated in the fourth chapter, all concurred to

STATISTICAL IX. Intendancy of Vera Cruz.
ANALYSIS. ́}

fix them on the ridge of the Cordillera. So long as the Encomenderos, abusing the rights which they derived from the laws, treated the Indians as serfs, a great number of them were transported from the regions of the coast to the table-land in the interior, either to work in the mines, or merely that they might be near the habitation of their masters. For two centuries the trade in indigo, sugar, and cotton, was next to nothing. The whites could by no means be induced to settle in the plains, where the true Indian climate prevails; and one would say that the Europeans came under the tropics merely to inhabit the temperate

zone.

Since the great increase in the consumption of sugar, and since the new continent has come to furnish many of the productions formerly procured only in Asia and Africa, the plains (tierras calientes) afford, no doubt, a greater inducement. to colonization. Hence, sugar and cotton plantations have been multiplying in the province of Vera Cruz, especially since the fatal events at St. Domingo, which have given a great stimulus to industry in the Spanish colonies. However, the progress hitherto has not been very remarkable on the Mexican coast. It will require centuries to re-people these deserts. Spaces of many square leagues are now only occupied by two or three

STATISTICAL} IX. Intendancy of Vera Cruz.

huts (hattos de ganado), around which stray herds of half wild cattle. A small number of powerful families who live on the central table-land possess the greatest part of the shores of the intendancies of Vera Cruz and San Luis Potosi. No agrarian law forces these rich proprietors to sell their mayorazgos, if they persist in refusing to bring the immense territories which belong to them under cultivation. They harass their farmers, and turn them away at pleasure.

To this evil, which is common to the coast of the gulph of Mexico, with Andalusia and a great part of Spain, other causes of depopulation must be added. The militia of the intendancy of Vera Cruz is much too numerous for a country so thinly inhabited. This service oppresses the labourer. He flees from the coast to avoid being compelled to enter into the corps ofthe lanceros and the milicianos. The levies for sailors to the royal navy are also too frequently repeated, and executed in too arbitrary a manner. Hitherto the government has neglected every means for increasing the population of this desert coast. From this state of things results a great want of hands, and a scarcity of provisions, singular enough in a country of such great fertility. The wages of an ordinary workman at Vera Cruz are from 5 to

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