POPULATION OF NEW SPAIN. 301 



mences, usually with great impetuosity, and generally CHAP.xxiv 

 continues three or four days. Occasionally, even in Dangerous. 

 May, June, July, and August, violent hurricanes are navigation. 

 experienced in the Gulf of Mexico. The navigation of 

 the western coasts is very dangerous in July and 

 August, when sudden gales burst from the S.W, ; and 

 even in the fine season, from October to May, furious 

 winds sometimes blow from the N.E. and N.N.E. In 

 short, all the coasts of New Spain are at certain periods 

 dangerous to navigators. 



It is probable that Mexico was formerly better inhab- Former 

 ited than it is at present ; but its popuhxtion was I'opu^ticii. 

 concentrated in a very small space in the neighbourhood 

 of the capital. At the present day it is more generally 

 distributed than it was before the conquest, and the 

 number of Indians has increased during the last century. 

 According to an imperfect census made in 1794, the re- census. 

 turn was estimated at 5,200,000. The proportion of 

 births to deaths, during the time between that period 

 and Humboldt's visit, was found, from data furnished 

 by the clergy, to be 170 : 100 ; while that of births to 

 the total amount he considers as 1 in 17, and of the 

 deaths as 1 in 30. The annual number at present born 

 he estimates at nearly 350,000, and that of deaths at 

 200,000. It would thus appear that, if this rate of check on 

 increase were not checked from time to time by some ui"'«tse 

 extraordinary cause, the population of New Spain would 

 double every nineteen years. In the United States 

 generally it has doubled, since 1784, every twenty or 

 twenty-three years ; and in some of them it doubles in 

 thirteen or fourteen. In France, on the other hand, the 

 number of inhabitants would double in 214 years were 

 no wars or contagious diseases to interfere. Such is the 

 difference between countries that have long been densely 

 peopled and those whose civilisation is of recent date. 

 Humboldt, from various considerations, assumes the 

 population of Mexico in 1803 at 5,800,000 ; and thinks 

 it extremely probable that in 1808 it exceeded 6,500,000. 



The causes which retard the increase of numbers in 



