8TX MONTHS IN MEXICO. 225 



steam, they have received such exaggerated 

 accounts, that they in general disbelieve the 

 whole statement. One person asked if it was 

 true that, by means of a boiling teakettle, a 

 thousand persons could be moved in safety 

 one hundred miles a day. And the French 

 story, of the inhabitants of Birmingham 

 making their clergy of cast iron, and causing 

 them to preach by steam, had been recently 

 imported in an American bottom. But the 

 Conde de Regla having lately discovered 

 both coal and iron on his estates, we may 

 hope in a short time to convince the Mexicans 

 of the truth of the new advantages to be 

 derived from these materials. 



The manufactory of shot is wretchedly 

 bad, being of all shapes, and selling at no less 

 a price than one shilling and sixpence per lb. 

 Gunpowder is cheap but coarse. 



English beer and porter are in great re- 

 quest, and often sold at enormous rates, 



VOL. i. q 



