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STATISTICAL IX. Intendancy of Vera Cruz.

The interior police has been much improved during these few years. The district in which Vera Cruz is situated was formerly called Chalchiuhcuecan. The island on which the fortress of San Juan de Ulua was constructed at an enormous expense (according to vulgar tradition at an expense of 200 millions of francs *), was visited by Juan de Grixalva in 1518. He gave it the name of Ulua, because having found the remains of two unfortunate victims † there, and having asked the natives why they sacrificed men, they answered that it was by orders of the kings of Acolhua or Mexico. The Spaniards, who had Indians of Yucatan for interpreters, mistook the answer, and believed Ulua to be the name of the island. It is to similar mistakes that Peru, the coast of Paria, and several other provinces, owe their present The city of Vera Cruz is frequently called Vera Cruz Nueva, to distinguish it from Vera Cruz Vieja, situated near the mouth of the Rio Antigua, considered by all the historians as the first colony formed by Cortez. The falsity of this opinion has been proved by the Abbe

names.

* 8,334,000l. sterling. Trans.

† It appears that these sacrifices took place on several of

the small islands around the port of Vera Cruz. islands, the dread of navigators, still bears the de Sacrificios.

One of these

name of Isla

STATISTICAL IX. Intendancy of Vera Cruz.

ANALYSIS.

Clavigero. The city begun in 1519, and called Villarica, or la Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz, was situated at three leagues distance from Cempoalla, the head town of the Totonacs, near the small port of Chiahuitzla, which we can with difficulty recognize in Robertson's work under the name of Quiabislan. Three years afterwards la Villa Rica was deserted, and the Spaniards founded another city to the south, which has preserved the name of l'Antigua. It is believed in the country that this second colony was again abandoned on account of the vomito, which at that period cut off more than two thirds of the Europeans who landed in the hot season. The viceroy, Count de Monterey, who governed Mexico at the end of the sixteenth century, ordered the foundations of the Nueva Vera Cruz, or present city, to be laid opposite the island of San Juan d'Ulua in the district of Chalchiucuecan, in the very place where Cortez first landed on the 21st of April, 1519. This third city of Vera Cruz received its privileges of city only under Philip III. in 1615. It is situated in an arid plain, destitute of running water, on which the north winds, which blow with impetuosity from October till April, have formed hills of moving sand. These downs (meganos de arena) change their form and situation every year,

STATISTICAL IX. Intendancy of Vera Cruz.

ANALYSIS.

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They are from 8 to 12 metres in height, and contribute very much by the reverberation of the sun's rays, and the high temperature which they acquire during the summer months, to increase the suffocating heat of the air at Vera Cruz. Between the city and the Aroyo Gavilan, in the midst of the downs, are marshy grounds covered with mangles and other brushwood. The stagnant water of the Baxio de la Tembladera, and the small lakes of l'Hormiga, el Rancho de la Hortaliza, and Arjona, occasions intermittent fevers among the natives. the natives. It is not improbable that it is also not one of the least important among the fatal causes of the vomito prieto, which we shall examine into in the sequel to this work. All the edifices of Vera Cruz are constructed of materials drawn from the bottom of the ocean, the stony habitation of the madrepores (piedras de mucara); for no rock is to be found in the environs of the city. The secondary formations, which repose on the porphyry of l'Encero, and which appear only near Acazonica, a farm of the Jesuits celebrated for its quarries of beautifully foliated gypsum, are covered with sand. Water is found on digging the sandy soil of Vera Cruz at the depth of a metret; but this water pro

From 26 to 38 feet. Trans.

9.8 feet. Trans.

STATISTICAL

ANALYSIS. IX. Intendancy of Vera Cruz.

ceeds from the filtration of the marshes formed in the downs. It is rain water, which has been in contact with the roots of vegetables; and is of a very bad quality, and only used for washing. The lower people (and the fact is important for the medical topography of Vera Cruz) are obliged to have recourse to the water of a ditch (zanja) which comes from the meganos, and is somewhat better than the well water, or that of the brook of Tenoya. People in easy circumstances, however, drink rain water collected in cisterns, of which the construction is extremely improper, with the exception of the beautiful cisterns (algibes) of the castle of San Juan d'Ulua, of which the very pure and wholesome water is only distributed to those in the military. This want of good potable water has been for centuries looked upon as one of the numerous causes of the diseases of the inhabitants. In 1704 a project was formed for conducting part of the fine river of Xamapa to the port of Vera Cruz. King Philip V. sent a French engineer to examine the ground. The engineer, discontented, no doubt, with his stay in a country so hot and disagreeable to live in, declared the execution of the project impossible. In 1756 the debates were renewed among the engineers, the municipality, the governor, the viceroy's assessor, and the fiscal. Hitherto there has been

STATISTICAL
ANALYSIS.

}IX. Intendancy of Vera Cruz.

spent in visits of persons of skill and judicial expenses (for every thing becomes a law-suit in the Spanish colonies!) the sum of 2,250,000 francs". Before surveying the ground, a dike or embank. ment has been formed 1100 metres† above the village of Xamapa, at an expense of a million and a half of francs ‡, which is now nearly half destroyed. The government has levied for these twelve years on the inhabitants a duty on flour, which brings in annually more than 150,000 francs §. A stone aqueduct (atarrea) capable of furnishing a section of water of 116 square centimetres is already constructed for a length of more than 900 metres ; and yet, notwithstanding all these expenses, and the farago of memoirs and informes heaped up in the archives, the waters of the Rio Xamapa are still more than 23,000** metres distant from the town of Vera Cruz. In 1795 they ended with what they ought to have begun with. A survey was made of the ground, and it was found that the mean body of the Xamapa was 8". 33 †† (10 Mexican varas, and 22 inches) above the level of the streets of Vera Cruz. It was found that the great

93,7571, sterling. Trans. 62,505. sterling. Trans. 17.98 square inches. Trans. **75,459 feet, Trans,

+3608 feet. Trans.
§ 6250l. sterling. Trans.
2,952 feet. Trans,
tt 27.32 feet. Trans.

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