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Antiqua
Antiqua; Spaltensatz; Auszeichnung: Kursivierung.
The “Literary Panorama” contains a very ex-
cellent review of
Humboldt’s political essay on thekingdom of New Spain. We shall present our
readers with frequent extracts from this valua-
ble track of information. At present we have
only room for the following:—
“THE condition of man is the most interest-
ing object in every country; and we confess
ourselves gratified by finding that in New Spain
the number of slaves [negroes] is comparatively
few, and the state of the Indians is less unhappy
than we had been accustomed to suppose. We
extract with pleasure a passage, from which it
appears that the mines, though a considerable
source of wealth, are not the only, or even the
chief wealth of the province of Mexico.
“The Indian cultivator is poor, but he is free.
His state is even greatly preferable to that of the
peasantry in a great part of the north of Europe.
There are neither corvees nor villanage in New
Spain; and the number of slaves is next to noth-
ing. Sugar is chiefly the produce of free hands.
There the principal objects of agriculture are
not the productions to which European luxury
has assigned a variable and arbitrary value, but
cereal gramina, nutrive roots, and the agave,
the vine of the Indians. The appearance of the
country proclaims to the traveller, that the soil
nourishes him who cultivates it, and that the
true prosperity of the Mexican people neither
depends on the accidents of foreign commerce,
nor on the unruly politicks of Europe.
“Those who only know the interiour of the
Spanish colonies, from the vague and uncertain
notions hitherto published, will have some dif-
ficulty in believing, that the principal sources
of the Mexican riches are by no means the mines,
but an agriculture which has been gradually a-
meliorating since the end of the last century.—
Without reflecting on the immense extent of the
country, and especially the great number of pro-
vinces which appear totally destitute of precious
metals, we generally imagine that all the activi-
ty of the Mexican population is directed to the
working of the mines. Because the agriculture
has made a very considerable progress in the
capitania general of Caraccas, in the kingdom of
Guatimala, the island of Cuba, and wherever the
mountains are accounted poor in mineral pro-
ductions, it has been inferred that it is to the
working of the mines that we are to attribute
the small care bestowed on the cultivation of
the soil in other parts of the Spanish colonies.
This reasoning is just when applied to small
portions of territory. No doubt, in the provin-
ces of Chaco and Antioqua, and the coast of Bar-
bacoas, the inhabitants are fonder of seeking for
gold washed down in the brooks and ravines,
than of cultivating a virgin and fertile soil; and
in the beginning of the conquest, the Spaniards
who abandoned the peninsula or Canary Islands,
to settle in Peru and Mexico, had no other view
but the discovery of the precious metals. Aurirabida sitis a cultura Hispanos divertit, says a
writer of those times, Pedro Martyr, in his
work on the discovery of Yutacan and the colo-
nization of the
“In Mexico, the best cultivated fields, those
which recall to the mind of the traveller the
beautiful plains of France, are those which ex-
tend from Salamanca towards Siloe, Guanaxuato,
and the Villa de Leon, and which surround the
richest mines of the known world. Wherever
metallick seams have been discovered in the
most uncultivated parts of the Cordilleras, on the
insulated and desert tablelands, the work-
ing of mines, far from impeding the cultivation
of the soil, has been singularly favourable to it.
Travelling along the ridge of the
mountainous part of Mexico, we everywhere see
the most striking examples of the beneficial in-
fluence of the mines on agriculture. Were it
not for the establishments formed for the work-
ing of the mines, how many places would have
remained desert? How many districts unculti-
vated in the four intendancies of Guanaxuato,
Zacatecas, San Luis Potosi, and Durango, be-
tween the parallels of 21 and 25 where the most
considerable metallick wealth of New Spain is to
be found? If the town is placed on the arid side,
or the crest of the Cordilleras, the new colonists
can only draw from a distance the means of their
subsistence, and the maintenance of the great
number of cattle employed in drawing off the
water, and raising and amalgamating the mine-
ral produce.
soil begins to be cultivated in the ravines and
declivities of the neighbouring mountains, where
ever the rock is covered with earth. Farms are
established in the neighbourhood of the mine.
The high price of provision, from the compe-
tition of the purchasers indemnifies the cul-
tivator for the privations to which he is expos-
ed, from the hard life of the mountains. Thus,
from the hope of gain alone, and the motives of
mutual interest, which are the most powerful
bonds of society, and without any interference
on the part of the government in colonization, a
mine which, at first, appeared insulated in the
midst of wild and desert mountains, becomes, in
a short time, connected with the lands which
have long been under cultivation.”
[ To be continued.]
[ Extracts Continued.]
“The valley in which the city of Mexico stands,
is upwards of 6500 feet above the level of the
sea. It is of an oval form, encompassed on all
sides by mountains. It contains several lakes.
The largest is salt. Formerly it surrounded the
city, which was approached only by causeways,
constructed in the water. But, at present, the
extent of this lake is diminished, and the city is
now on the land, at some distance from the water’s
edge. The circumference of the valley is 67
leagues.
“Mexico is undoubtedly one of the finest cities
ever built by Europeans in either hemisphere.
With the exception of Petersburgh, Berlin, Phil-
adelphia, and some quarters in 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 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 even edifices of very beauti-
ful structure. The exteriour of the houses is not
loaded with ornaments.
“The Ballustrades and gates are all of Biscay
iron, ornamented with bronze, and the houses,
instead of roofs, have terraces like those in Ita-
ly, and other southern countries.
“Mexico has been very much embellished,
since the residence of the abbe
1769. The edifice destined to the School of
Mines, for which the richest individuals of the
country furnished a sum of more than three mil-
lions of francks, would adorn the principal pla-
ces of Paris or London. Two great palaces [ho-
tels] were recently constructed by Mexican ar-
tists, pupils of the academy of fine arts of the
capital. One of these palaces, in the quarter
della Traspana, exhibited in the interiour of a
court a very beautiful oval peristyle of coupled
columns. The traveller justly admires a vast cir-
cumference, paved with porphyry flags, and en-
closed with an iron railing, richly ornamented
with bronze, containing an
king
Mexican marble, in the midst of the
viceroy’s palace. However, it must be agreed,
that notwithstanding the progress of the arts,
within these last thirty years, it is much less,
from the grandeur and beauty of the monuments,
than from the breadth and straitness of the
streets, and much less from its edifices, than
from its uniform regularity, its extent and posi-
tion, that the capital of New Spain attracts the
admiration of Europeans.
“Nothing can present a more rich and varied
appearance, than the valley, when, in a fine sum-
mer morning, the sky without a cloud, and of that
deep azure which is peculiar to the dry and rare-
fied air of high mountains, we transport our-
selves to the top of one of the towers of the cathe-
dral of Mexico, or ascend the hill of Chapolte-
peck. A beautiful vegetation surrounds this hill.
Old cypress trunks, of more than 15 and 16 me-
tres in circumference, raise their naked heads
above those of the schinus, which resemble, in
their appearance, the weeping willows of the
east. From the centre of this solitude, the sum-
mit of the porphyritical rock of Chapoltpeck,
the eye sweeps over a vast plain of carefully cul-
tivated fields, which extend to the very feet of
the colossal mountains covered with perpetual
snow. The city appears as if washed by the
waters of the lake of Tezeuco, whose basin, sur-
rounded with villages and hamlets, brings to mind
the most beautiful lakes of the mountains of
Switzerland. Large avenues of elms and pop-
lars lead, in every direction, to the capital; and
two acqueducts, constructed over arches of very
great elevation, cross the plain, and exhibit an
appearance equally agreeable and interesting.
The magnificent convent of Nuestra Sonora de
Guadaloupe, appears joined to the mountains of
Tepeyacack, among ravines, which shelter a few
date and young yucca trees. Towards the south,
the whole tract between San Angel, Tacabaya,
and San Augustin de las Cuevas, appears an im-
mense garden of orange, peach, apple, cherry,
and other European fruit trees. This beautiful
cultivation forms a singular contrast with the
wild appearance of the naked mountains which
enclose the valley, among which the famous vol-
canos of La Puebla, Popocatepelt, and Iztaccici-
chuatl are the most distinguished. The first of
these forms an enormous cone, of which the cra-
ter, continually inflamed, and throwing up smoak
and ashes, opens in the midst of eternal snows.”
[ To be continued.]
[ Extracts Continued.]
“The present population of Mexico is estimated
at 135 to 140,000 individuals. It probably con-
sists of
“There are, consequently, in Mexico, 69,500
men of colour, and 67,500 whites; but a great num-
ber of the
Europeans and Spanish Creoles!
“In the twenty-three male convents which the
capital contains, there are nearly 1200 individuals,
of whom 580 are priests and choristers. In the
fifteen female convents there are 2100 individuals,
of whom nearly 900 are professed religieuses.”
“Among the colonies subject to the king of
Spain, Mexico occupies, at present, the first rank,
both on account of its territorial wealth, and on ac-
count of its favourable position for commerce
with Europe and
of the political value of the country, considering
it in its actual state of civilization, which is very
superiour to that of the other Spanish possessions.
Many branches of agriculture have undoubtedly
attained a higher degree of perfection in the prov-
ince of Caraccas than in New Spain. The fewer
mines a colony has, the more the industry of the
inhabitants is turned towards the productions of the
vegetable kingdom. The fertility of the soil is
greater in the provinces of Cumana, of
celona
banks of the
part of New Granada, than in the kingdom of Mex-
ico, of which several regions are barren, destitute
of water, and incapable of vegetation. But on
considering the greatness of the population of Mex-
ico, the number of considerable cities in the prox-
imity of one another; the enormous value of the
metallick produce, and its influence on the com-
merce of Europe and
ing the imperfect state of cultivation observable in
the rest of
justify the preference which the court of Madrid
has long manifested for Mexico, above its other
colonies.”