will experience a sensible fall. The Mexican flour, which has hitherto been dearer at the Havannah than the flour of Philadelphia, will be naturally preferred to the latter; the exportation of the sugars and hides of the country will be more considerable; and the transportation of goods on waggons will require a much smaller number of mules and horses than are now employed. These changes will produce a double effect on subsistence; and the scarcities which have hitherto alınost periodically desolated Mexico will be more rare; not only because the consumption of maize will be less, but because the agriculturist, stimulated by the hope of selling his flour at Vera Cruz, will appropriate more of his land to the cultivation of wheat.

During my stay at Xalapa in the month of February 1804, the new road constructed under the direction of Don Garcia Conde, had been commenced on those points which presented the greatest difficulties; namely, the ravine called the Plan del Rio, and the Cuesta del Soldado. It is intended to place columns of porphyry along the road, for the purpose of indicating both the distances and the elevation of the surface above the level of the ocean. These inscriptions, which are no where to be met with in Europe, will be particularly interesting to a traveller who is climbing the eastern ascent of the Cordillera; they will quiet his mind, by announcing to him that he is approaching that fortunate and elevated region, in which the scourge

24

ROAD FROM MEXICO TO VERA CRUZ.

of the black vomit, or yellow fever, is no longer to be dreaded.

The old road of Xalapa leads from Rinconada eastward, by the old Vera Cruz vulgarly called la Antigua. After passing below this village the river of the same name, 650 feet in breadth, we follow the coast by Punta Gorda and Vergara; or if the tide is high, we take the road of la Manga de Clavo, which does not rejoin the coast till the very port of Vera Cruz. It would be advantageous to construct a bridge over the Rio de la Antigua, near la Ventilla, where the bed of the river is only 350 feet in breadth, by which means the Xalapa road would be shortened more than 18 miles; and without touching old Vera Cruz, it would lead immediately from the Plan del Rio, by the bridge of la Ventilla, Passo de Ovejas, Cienega de Olocuatla, and Loma de San Juan, to Vera Cruz. This change is so much the more desirable, as it is the journey from Encero to the coast which is the most dangerous to the health of the inhabitants of the interior of Mexico, when they descend from the table-land of Perote and the heights of Xalapa.

CHAPTER II.

City of Mexico-situation-population-buildings-surrounding country-scientific establishments-progress of opinion-distribution of property.

THE situation of the city of Mexico possesses inestimable advantages, if we consider it with relation to its intercourse with the rest of the civilized world. Placed on an isthmus, washed by the South Sea and Atlantic Ocean, Mexico appears destined to possess a powerful influence over the political events which agitate the two continents. A king of Spain resident in the capital might transmit his orders in five weeks to the Peninsula in Europe, and in six weeks to the Philippine islands in Asia. This vast empire, under a careful cultivation, would alone produce all that commerce collects together from the rest of the globe,-sugar, cochineal, cacao, cotton, coffee, wheat, hemp, flax, silk, oils, and wine. It would furnish every metal, without even the exception of mercury. The finest timber and an abundance of iron and copper might favour the progress of Mexican navigation, although the state of the coasts and the want of ports oppose obstacles in this respect which would be difficult to overcome. Mexico is the most populous city of the new continent. It contains nearly 40,000 inhabitants less

E

than Madrid; and as it forms a great square of which each side is about 9,000 feet, its population is spread over a great extent of ground. The streets being very spacious, in general appear rather deserted. They are the less frequented, as, in a climate considered cold by the inhabitants of the tropics, people do not expose themselves so much to the open air, as in the cities at the foot of the Cordillera. Hence the latter (ciudades de tierra caliente) uniformly appear more populous than the cities of the temperate or cold regions (ciudades de tierra fria).

Adorned with numerous teocallis*, like so many Mahometan steeples, surrounded with water and dikes, founded on islands covered with verdure, and receiving hourly in its streets thousands of boats, which animated the lake, the ancient Tenochtitlan, according to the accounts of the first conquerors, must have resembled some of the cities of Holland, China, or the Delta of Lower Egypt. The capital, reconstructed by the Spaniards, exhibits, perhaps, a less lively, though a more august and majestic appearance. Mexico is undoubtedly one of the finest cities ever built by Europeans in either hemisphere. With the exception of Petersburg, Berlin, Philadelphia, and some parts of Westminster, there does not exist a city of the same extent which can be compared to the capital of New Spain-for the uniform level of the ground on which it stands, for

* Houses of God.

the regularity and breadth of the streets, and the extent of the public places. The architecture is generally of a very pure style, and there are some edifices of very beautiful structure. The exterior of the houses is not loaded with ornaments. Two sorts of hewn stone, the porous amygdaloid called tetzontli, and especially a porphyry of vitreous feldspath without any quartz, give to the Mexican buildings an air of solidity, and sometimes even of magnificence. None of those wooden balconies and galleries are to be seen, which so much disfigure all the European cities in both Indies. The balustrades and gates are all of Biscay iron, ornamented with bronze; and the houses, instead of roofs, have terraces like those in Italy and other southern countries.

Mexico has been very much embellished since the residence of the Abbé Chappe there in 1769. The edifice destined to the School of Mines, for which the richest individuals of the country furnished a sum of more than 125,000. sterling, would adorn the principal places of Paris or London. Two great palaces (hotels) were recently constructed by Mexican artists, pupils of the Academy of Fine Arts of the capital. One of these palaces, in the quarter della Traspuna, exhibits in the interior of the court a very beautiful oval peristyle of clustered columns. The traveller admires a vast circumference paved with porphyry flags, and inclosed with an iron railing, richly ornamented with bronze,