8o (Seograpbfcal iRotes on flDejico. 



drinking wine, but in moderation, spending no money, dressing poorly, 

 and ever with a fortune accumulating. The American wants to cut a 

 dash and so does the Englishman, else the English would have main- 

 tained their commercial supremacy in Mexico. They lost it to the 

 more frugal and economical Germans. 



The American is a speculator, a dreamer of golden dreams ; he lives 

 for the eyes of other people ; he is not capable of the patience that 

 keeps a man tied to a desk or shop for half a lifetime, making a savings 

 bank of himself. 



Some Mexicans are afraid that a free influx of citizens from this 

 country may Americanize it. This is true as to the means of trans- 

 portation, the introduction of electric lights, improved hotel accomo- 

 dations, and where similar improvements are concerned. But there is 

 no doubt of the persistence of traditions and habits, and the influence 

 of climate. It is difficult to introduce the American push and restless- 

 ness in business, and to overcome the habits formed in many centuries 

 of letting the morrow take care of itself. There must be the mid-day 

 siesta, and the number of working days is reduced by several feast 

 days, saints' days, and holidays, besides the Sundays. There is no 

 doubt that the productiveness of nature is an inducement to very 

 leisurely labor, and the lack of any sharp division of seasons is a sort 

 of moral discipline, as well as a stimulus to extra exertion in summer 

 to prepare for winter. What must be the effect upon character when 

 this stimulus is wanting? It is possible, of course, that industry will 

 be stimulated by the inflow of settlers from the north, and that Mexico 

 will take on new enterprise and productive vigor ; but I think it is 

 easier for Americans in Mexico to fall into Mexican ways and Mexican 

 moral views than it is to convert the Mexicans to the American view 

 of life. I do not doubt that Mexico has a great industrial, agricultu- 

 ral, and manufacturing future, but I fancy that its power of absorp- 

 tion, like that of Egypt, is greater than its facility of adaptation. 



Ruins. We have in Mexico some of the most ancient and remark- 

 able ruins, and although there are different surmises about the time at 

 which they were built and the people who built them, nothing is known 

 positively about them. 



The principal ones are in Uxmaland and Chichen Itza in Yucatan 

 Comalcalco in Tabasco, Teotihuacan and Cholula in Puebla and 

 Tlaxcala, and Mitla in Oaxaca. 



UxmaL Uxmal is not far from the city of Merida, the capital of 

 the State of Yucatan, supposed to have been built by the Mayas, and 

 different books have been written about them, especially one by Dr. 

 Augustus Le Plongeon, a French savant, who passed many years in 

 Yucatan, studying its magnificent ruins, and published in New York, 

 in 1896, a book entitled Queen Mod and the Egyptian Sphinx, in which 



