1828.] 



Domestic and Foreign. 



525 



bably things are not so bad as the rules of 

 the establishment indicate. They plainly 

 partake of the hospitalities shewn to visi- 

 tors. He found a library of 11,000 volumes, 

 bound in parchment chiefly, of course, de- 

 votional. He inquired in vain for old Mex- 

 ican MS. and objects of antiquity ; and his 

 inquiries about these matters, indeed, where- 

 ever he went, produced very little fruits. 

 Now and then he met with an idol, or a 

 piece of one still unmetamorphosed, un- 

 appropriated we mean, to the Catholic wor- 

 ship which he zealously copied into his 

 sketch bookwhich sketch book has, we 

 believe, since been published. 



Every where he represents the state of 

 religion as most degrading below the most 

 degraded of Catholic countries. Foreigners 

 are all supposed to be Jews, and universally 

 invested with tails ; and one proof to them 

 is, that our stirrups being placed more for- 

 ward on the saddles than is the custom of the 

 country, is to allow of our stooping a little, 

 so as to prevent any unpleasant friction 

 from the saddle. Captain Lyon was him- 

 self introduced to some nuns, by a friend, 

 as, of course, a Jew, and adorned with a 

 tail, which, becoming the subject of conver- 

 sation, one of the young ladies very shrewd- 

 ly inquired if the tail did not drop off upon 

 conversion. 



While he was at the mines, two men fell 

 down a shaft ; one was killed on the spot, 

 but the other lingered a day or two. Cap- 

 tain Lyon was present at the drawing up, 

 in a net, of the one still alive, but he was 

 not allowed to examine the wounds till a 

 priest, who was in attendance, had confessed 

 him it being a law, that if a man be found 

 even stabbed and bleeding in the street, no 

 one must venture to attempt to staunch the 

 blood, till the alcalde has seen him, and the 

 padre taken his confession. 



Of the political state of the country the 

 object of greatest interest relative to Mexico 

 Captain Lyon furnishes no information 

 whatever nor utters a word about the state 

 of parties, or of the leading characters. To 

 be sure, his stay both at Mexico and Guada- 

 laxera the chief seats of political activity , 

 was too brief to give him much opportunity 

 for acquiring information to be relied upon, 

 and he has therefore done wisely in abstain- 

 ing. All this will be amply supplied by 

 Mr. Ward's forthcoming book. But Cap- 

 tain Lyon has some general observations on 

 the people of Mexico, which may not be 

 unacceptable, and the substance of which is 

 this 



The Creoles, or descendants of Europeans, 

 are the most eminent persons in New Spain 

 the first caste. These, with the excep- 

 tion of such as are engaged in active com- 

 merce, are an indolent, overbearing, haughty 

 race keeping the poor despised Indian in 

 ignorance, and regarding him with pro- 

 found contempt. With some few excep- 

 tions, Captain Lyon considers them as the 



least estimable people in the country ; but 

 he anticipates material and speedy improve- 

 ments especially from the influx of fo- 

 reigners the establishment of schools and 

 above all, the polishing of the ladies, which 

 process he thinks is advancing rapidly- 

 many of our countrymen, it seems, having 

 married young ladies of the highest family, 

 thus facilitating the introduction of Euro- 

 pean manners. Cigars are fast going out of 

 fashion ; and some ladies we think Captain 

 Lyon asserts have already been seen with 

 gloves, and something like an approach to a 

 pair of stays. 



The Rancheros, or Vaqueros, are a mixed 

 race of Creole and Indian. These are, 

 he says, the yeomen of the country live 

 on extensive cattle plains, or in cultivated 

 but remote districts content with their 

 cabins of mud and sticks lively, brave, 

 good-tempered profoundly ignorant, and 

 indifferent about every thing but their im- 

 mediate business. In the revolutionary 

 wars, they have too frequently been changed 

 from quiet husbandmen into barbarous and 

 blood-thirsty soldiers but time will remedy 

 this and they will retain their peaceful 

 pursuits, with the advantage of more ex- 

 perience and acquaintance with other scenes. 



The Arrieros, or Muleteers, are an offset 

 from the Rancheros. This is a hardy race 

 rarely sleeping under a roof, whether tra- 

 versing the burning low lands, or the cold 

 and misty elevated regions of the great Cor- 

 dillera, but lie down among their packages, 

 screened from the rains by coarse sacking, 

 while the mules are turned loose to graze. 

 They are proverbially honest, and Captain 

 Lyon's great favourites he always found 

 them civil, obliging, and cheerful. They 

 are more acute, too, than any other class of 

 Mexico, and have a liberality of feeling 

 very rare, he says, in New Spain all 

 which he attributes probably with good 

 reason to their intercourse with a greater 

 variety of people. 



The lowest, and last, are the Indians 

 the mild, enduring, and despised Indians 

 a people capable of receiving the best 

 impressions grave and serious and when 

 excited and guided by the priests, in the 

 late revolutionary wars, shewed a degree of 

 courage and devotedness rarely equalled. 

 They reside chiefly in the remoter parts 

 cultivating the fruits of the earth, or, assem- 

 bled in small villages, making cloth, and 

 pottery, and rearing poultry for the markets. 

 They are unmixed with Spanish blood, and 

 few of them know any thing of the Spanish 

 language. In the towns they are always 

 seen in groups, nor does Captain Lyon re- 

 member ever to have seen a pure Indian 

 walking with a white. They are of a deep 

 dingy brown ugly and ungraceful docile, 

 though ill taught but look up with pecu- 

 liar veneration to their priests, who, as has 

 been before hinted, have so accommodated 

 matters, that the ancient religion of Mexico 



