586 " Mexico ;" and " Mexican Illustrations." 



wheel off his carriage. But, in spite of these broad distinctions of cha- 

 racter perhaps from the very effect of them both the works are interest- 

 ing; and neither will be dull (we predict, from an attentive perusal of 

 both), even to those who may have recently read the other. As it would 

 be utterly impossible, however, for us to do more with a couple of pro- 

 ductions ; one only of which (that of Mr, Ward) contains the observa- 

 tions of an experience of three years, upon the history, laws, commercial 

 and political relations, natural history, religion, prevailing opinions, and 

 natural capabilities of a country [[Mexico alone] larger than Great 

 Britain, France, Austria, Spain, and Portugal put together : " so little 

 understood, too," says, Mr. Ward, " even as to geographical position, by 

 the million, that I have been repeatedly asked, since my return to 

 England, whether Captain Head's description of the Pampas is correct ? 

 although Mexico is nineteen degrees north, and Buenos Ayres thirty-four 

 degrees south of the line !" as it would be hopeless for us to attempt 

 more, even with a single work embracing these topics (not to speak of 

 the whole history of the South American revolution, and an examination 

 of the mining prospects of the English speculators in that country), than 

 merely to direct the attention of our readers to those objects upon which, 

 by an inspection of the volumes, they may amuse or satisfy themselves, 

 we shall take Mr. Beaufoy's " Manual" (as the more manageable book 

 of the two), for a review of twelve pages, to pick out points from as we 

 run along : occasionally checking the looser theories and observations of 

 the captain, by a reference to the more cautiously taken latitudes and 

 cooler judgment of his literary contemporam and brother traveller. 



In the year 1825, during the height of the fever for South American 

 speculations in England when the good people of this country devoutly 

 believed that gold and silver grew in the streets of Mexico and Buenos 

 Ayres, only that the natives were such noodles that they had not sense 

 to pick it up ; and that a sort of magical process was at last invented, by 

 which persons paying their three or four pounds " deposit" into a 

 London banker's, by public advertisement, became actually parties 

 engaged in a trade of enormous risk and arduousness, as well as extent, 

 of the location of which they certainly knew but little, and of the con- 

 duct of which they could not find any body who knew any thing at all, 

 but from which the extraction of enormous fortunes to every man of 

 them was nevertheless matter of entire certainty at this happy period, 

 Mr. Beaufoy was engaged by one of the Mexican mining associations, to 

 proceed to Mexico to extend their purchases, and watch over their 

 interests: and, after touching at some of the West India islands, of 

 which brief but rather lively descriptions are given, he arrived, fall of 

 hope, and Robertson, and Baron Humboldt, and Bullock's Museum, in 

 the harbour of Tampico. 



The land was made under rather tumultuous auspices. A storm of 

 thunder and lightning threatened ignition to the sea, and would have set 

 the Thames on fire to a certainty ! A tremendous surf was beating on the 

 bar : sharks flying round the ship, rampant in the prospect of a dinner : 

 and a woman newly carried off by an alligator, and eaten all but one 

 leg, which her friends " had the satisfaction of rescuing/' To mend the 

 matter, no pilot came off. All the salutes and signals of the ship were 

 unattended to ; and an American who lay near one of the Job's com- 

 forters that people are always sure to meet with in distress said, that he 

 had been already in the port ten days, without being able to land his 



