slaves. Hence, in St. Domingo, in every 100 souls, eight were white, six free people of colour, and eighty-six African slaves. Jamaica was computed in 1787 to have in every 100 inhabitants, ten whites, four people of colour, and eighty-six slaves; and yet this English colony possesses a smaller population by one-third than the intendancy of Oaxaca. Hence, the disproportion between the Europeans or their descendants, and the casts of Indian or African blood, is still greater in the southern part of New Spain than in the French and English sugar islands. The island of Cuba, on the contrary, exhibits even at this day in the distribution of the races a very great and a very consolatory difference. From the most careful statistical researches which I was enabled to make during my stay at the Havanah, in 1800 and 1804, I found that at the last of these epochs the total population of the island of Cuba amounted to 432,000 souls, among whom there

or in every 100 inhabitants, fifty-four Creole and European whites, twenty-one men of colour, and

twenty-five slaves. The proportion of freemen to slaves is there as three to one, while at Jamaica they are as one to six.

The following table exhibits the proportion of the other casts to the whites in the different parts of the new continent. Out of every 100 inhabitants, we reckon

In the United States of North

In the capital of Mexico, according to the enumeration of the Count de Revillagigedo, in every 100 inhabitants, forty-nine are Spanish Creoles, two Spaniards born in Europe, twentyfour Aztec and Otomite Indians, and twenty-five people of mixed blood. The exact knowledge of these proportions is of the utmost importance to those who have the superintendence of the colonies.

It would be difficult to estimate exactly how many Europeans there are among the 1,200,000 whites who inhabit New Spain. As in the capital of Mexico itself, where the government brings together the greatest number of Spaniards, in a population of more than 135,000 souls, not more than

A A

2500 individuals are born in Europe, it is more than probable that the whole kingdom does not contain more than 70 or 80,000. They constitute, therefore, only the 70th part of the whole population, and the proportion of Europeans to white Creoles is as one to fourteen.

The Spanish laws prohibit all entry into the American possessions to every European not born in the peninsula. The words European and Spaniard are become synonimous in Mexico and Peru. The inhabitants of the remote provinces have therefore a difficulty in conceiving that there can be Europeans who do not speak their language; and they consider this ignorance as a mark of low extraction, because, every where around them, all, except the very lowest class of the people, speak Spanish. Better acquainted with the history of the sixteenth century than with that of our own times, they imagine that Spain continues to possess a decided preponderance over the rest of Europe. To them the peninsula appears the very centre of European civilization. It is otherwise with the Americans of the capital. Those of them who are acquainted with the French or English literature fall easily into a contrary extreme; and have still a more unfavourable opinion of the mother country than the French had at a time when communication was less frequent between Spain and the rest of Europe. They prefer strangers from other countries to the

Spaniards; and they flatter themselves with the idea that intellectual cultivation has made more rapid progress in the colonies than in the peninsula.

This progress is indeed very remarkable at the Havanah, Lima, Santa Fe, Quito, Popayan, and Caraccas. Of all these great cities the Havanah bears the greatest resemblance to those of Europe in customs, refinements of luxury, and the tone of society. At Havanah the state of politics and their influence on commerce is best understood. However, notwithstanding the efforts of the patriotic society of the island of Cuba, which encou rages the sciences with the most generous zeal, they prosper very slowly in a country where cultivation and the price of colonial produce engross the whole attention of the inhabitants. The study of the mathematics, chemistry, mineralogy, and botany, is more general at Mexico, Santa Fe, and Lima. We every where observe a great intellectual activity, and among the youth a wonderful facility of seizing the principles of science. It is said that this facility is still more remarkable among the inhabitants of Quito and Lima than, at Mexico and Santa Fe. The former appear to possess more versatility of mind and a more lively imagination; while the Mexicans and the natives of Santa Fe have the reputation of greater perseverance in the studies to which they have once addicted them

selves.

No city of the new continent, without even ex

cepting those of the United States, can display such great and solid scientific establishments as the capital of Mexico. I shall content myself here with naming the School of Mines, directed by the learned Elhuyar, to which we shall return when we come to speak of the mines; the Botanic Garden, and the Academy of Painting and Sculpture. This academy bears the title of Academia de los Nobles Artes de Mexico. It owes its existence to the patriotism of several Mexican individuals, and to the protection of the minister Galvez. The government assigned it a spacious building, in which there is a much finer and more complete collection of casts than is to be found in any part of Germany. We are astonished on seeing that the Apollo of Belvidere, the group of Laocoon, and still more colossal statues, have been conveyed through mountainous roads at least as narrow as those of St. Go hard; and we are surprised at finding these masterpieces of antiquity collected together under the torrid zone, in a table land higher than the convent of the great St. Bernard. The collection of casts brought to Mexico cost the king 200,000 francs *. The remains of the Mexican sculpture, those colossal statues of basaltes and porphyry, which are covered with Aztec hieroglyphics, and bear some relation to the Egyptian and Hindoo style, ought to be collected together in

* 83341. sterling.