Peru, because in the former, the number of whites is greater; and the custom of smoking cegars is much more general, and is even practised by women and children. In France, where, according to the researches of Mr. Fabre de l'Aude, there are eight millions, of inhabitants who use tobacco, the total consumption is more than forty millions of pounds; but the value of the foreign tobacco imported only amounted, in 1787, to 14,142,000 livres tournois.

*

New Spain, far from exporting its own tobacco, draws annually nearly 56,000 pounds from the Havannah. The vexations which the planters experience, added to the preference given to the cultivation of coffee, have, however, much diminished the produce of the farm at Cuba. At this day, that island scarcely supplies 150,000 arrobas; whereas before 1794, in good years, the crop was estimated at 315.000 arrobas, (7,875,000 pounds t) of which 160,000 arrobas were consumed in the island, and 128,000 sent to Spain. This branch of co lonial industry, is of the very greatest importance, even in its actual state of monopoly

**Peuchet, p. 315 and 409.

4

† Raynal, (t. iii. p. 268.) only estimated the produce at 4,675,000 pounds. Virginia produced annually, before 1775, more than 55,000 hogsheads, or 35 millions of pounds of tobacco. Jefferson, p. 323.

#

and constraint. La renta de tabaco of the peninsula, yields a net revenue of six millions of piastres, a revenue arising in a great measure from the sale of the tobacco of the island of Cuba sent to Seville. The magazines of this city sometimes contain stores of 18 or 19 millions of pounds of snuff, the value of which amounts to the exorbitant sum of 200 millions of livres.*

The cultivation of indigo, which is very general in the kingdom of Guatimala, and in the province of Caracas, is very much neglected in Mexico. The plantations along the western coast are not even sufficient for the few manufactures of home cotton cloth. Indigo is annually imported from the kingdom of Guatimala, where the total produce of the plantations amounts to the value of 12 millions of livres. This substance, as to which Mr. Beckman has made such learned researches, was known to the Greeks and Romans under the name of indicum. The word anil, which has passed into the Spanish language, is derived from the Arabian word niz or nil. Hernandez, speaking of the Mexican indigo, calls it aniz. The Greeks, in the time of Dioscorides, drew indigo from Gedrozia; and in the 13th century, Marco Polo carefully described the mode of its preparation in Hindostan. Raynal is wrong

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

when he maintains that the Europeans introduced the cultivation of that valuable plant into America. Several species of indigofera

are peculiar to the New Continent. Ferdinand Columbus, in the life of his father, mentions indigo among the productions of the island of Hayti. Hernandez describes the process by which the natives of Mexico separated the fecula from the juice of the plant, a process different from that now employed. The small cakes of indigo, dried by fire, were called mohuitli or tleuohuilli. The plant was even designated by the name Xiuhquilipitzahuac. Hernandez proposed to the court, to introduce the cultivation of indigo into the southern part of Spain. I know not if his counsel was followed, but it is certain that indigo was very common in Malta, till towards the end of the 17th century. The species of indigofera, from which indigo is at this day procured in the colonies, are: The indigofera tinctoria, I. anil, I. disperma, and I. argentea, as is proved by the most antient hieroglyphical paintings of the Mexicans; even thirty years after the conquest, the Spaniards, who had not yet found out the materials for making ink, wrote with indigo, as is proved

* Hernandez, lib. iv. c. 12. p. 108. Clavigero, ii. 189. Beckmann, 1. c. iv. 474-532. Berthollet, Elemens de l'Art de la Teinture, ii. 37.

by the papers preserved in the archives of the Duke de Monteleone, who is the last descendant of the family of Cortez. At Santa Fe, they still write with a juice extracted from the fruits of the Uvilla (Cestrum Tinctorium), and there exists an order of the court, prohibiting the viceroys from using, in their official papers, any other materials than this blue of the Uvilla, because it had been found that it was more indestructible than the best European ink.

After carefully examining those vegetables which are of importance to the agriculture and commerce of Mexico, it remains for us to give a rapid view of the productions of the animal kingdom. Although one of these productions in the greatest request, cochineal, belongs originally to New Spain, it is certain, however, that the most interesting productions for the prosperity of the inhabitants have been introduced there from the antient continent. The Mexicans had not endeavoured to reduce to a domestic state the two species of wild oxen, (Bos Americanus and Bos Moschatus) which wander in herds over the plains in the neighbourhood of the Rio del Norte. They were unacquainted with the Llama, which in the Cordillera of the Andes is not found beyond the limits of the Southern Hemisphere. They made no use of the wild

sheep of California*, nor of the goats of the mountains of Monterey. Among the numerous varieties of dogs t peculiar to Mexico, one alone, the Techichi served for food to the inhabitants. Undoubtedly the want of domestic animals was less felt before the conquest, when every family cultivated but a small extent of ground, and when a great part of the inhabitants lived almost exclusively on vegetables. However the want of these animals compelled a numerous class of the inhabitants, the Tlamama, to labour as beasts of burden, and to pass their lives on the highways. They were loaded with large leathern chests (in Mexican Petlacalli, in Spanish petacas) which contained goods to the weight of 30 or 40 kilogrammes. +

Since the middle of the sixteenth century, the most useful animals of the old continent, oxen, horses, sheep, and hogs, have

* As to the wild sheep and goats of the mountains of Old and New California, see vol. ii. chap. viii. p. 327.

+ See my Tableaux de la Nature, t. i. p. 124-127. The Cumanchis, a tribe of the northern provinces, employ dogs in the carriage of tents, like many of the tribes of Siberia. See vol. ii. p. 286. The Peruvians of Sausa (Xauxa) and Huanca ate their dogs (runalco), and the Aztecs sold in their markets the flesh of the mute dog techichi, which was castrated for the purpose of fattening. Lorenzana, p. 103.