PASCUARO. 287 



Pascuaro was situated on the picturesque banks of a 

 little lake of the same name. This lake, and the scenery 

 in its vicinity, Humboldt declared, would alone have re- 

 paid him for his voyage across the ocean. The city or 

 town of Pascuaro contained the ashes of a remarkable 

 man, Vasco de Quiroga, the first bishop of Mechoacan. 

 He was the benefactor of the Indians in his diocese, 

 whose industry he encouraged, prescribing one particular 

 branch of trade to each village. He died in 1556 ; but 

 even in Humboldt's time his memory was venerated by 

 the Indians, who continued to call him their father. 



The Indians of the province of Valladolid formed 

 three races of different origin, the Tarascs, celebrated in 

 the sixteenth century for the gentleness of their manners, 

 for their industry in the mechanical . arts, and for the 

 harmony of their language, abounding in vowels; the 

 Otomites, a tribe far behind them in civilization, who 

 spoke a language full of nasal and guttural aspirations ; 

 and the Chichimecs, who had preserved the Mexican lan- 

 guage. All the south part of the Intendancy of Valla- 

 dolid was inhabited by Indians. In the villages, the only 

 white figure to be met with was the cure, and he also 

 was frequently an Indian, or Mulatto. The benefices 

 were so poor there, that the bishop of Mechoacan had 

 the greatest difficulty in procuring ecclesiastics to settle 

 in a country where Spanish was almost never spoken, 

 and where along the coast of the Great Ocean, the priests, 

 infected by the contagious miasmata of malignant fevers, 

 frequently died before the expiration of seven or eight 

 months. 



But the wonder of the Intendancy of Valladolid, and 

 indeed of Mexico itself, was the remarkable volcano of 



