RECAPITULATION. 399 
Agriculture.—The banana, manioc, maize, wheat, 
and potatoes, constitute the principal food of the 
people. The maguey or agave may be considered 
as the Indian vine. Sugar, cotton, vanilla, cocoa, 
indigo, tobacco, wax, and cochineal, are plentifully 
produced. Cattle are abundant on the great savan- 
nahs in the interior. 
Mines.—The annual produce in gold is 4289 Ib. 
troy ; in silver, 1,439,832 lb. ; in all, 23,000,000 of 
piasters (£5,031,250), or nearly half the quantity 
annually extracted from the mines of America. 
The mint of Mexico furnished from 1690 to 1803 
more than 1,353,000,000 piasters (£295,968,750), 
and from the discovery of New Spain to the com- 
mencement of the nineteenth century, probably 
2,028,000,000 piasters (£443,625,000). Three 
mining districts, Guanaxuato, Zacatecas, and Ca- 
torce, yield nearly half of all the gold and silver of 
New Spain. 
Manufactures.—The value of the produce of the 
manufacturing industry of New Spain is estimated 
at 7,000,000 or 8,000,000 of piasters (valuing the 
piaster of exchange at 3s. 34d., £1,152,083 to 
£1,316,667). Cotton and woollen cloths, cigars, 
soda, soap, gunpowder, and leather, are the prin- 
cipal articles manufactured. 
It is searcely necessary to add, that the regions of 
America, which at the time of Humboldt’s visit 
were Spanish colonies, have, after a series of san- 
guinary struggles, excited by the real or imagined 
grievances under which the inhabitants laboured, 
now succeeded in acquiring independence. This 
condition is more suitable than subjection to a re- 
mote power, protracted beyond the period at which 
