PLANTER-LIFE ITS SOLITUDE AND RESULTS. 35 



tion and education of the planter, if he lives constantly on his estate, 

 — which is not universally the case, — are altogether different from 

 those of the North American land-holder. The Mexican possesses 

 few or none of those social and intellectual qualities that have 

 been cultivated by the North American in the best colleges and 

 circles of his country ; nor does he enjoy equal facilities of inter- 

 communication between the cities or rural districts of Mexico. 

 The immense size of his plantation which sometimes extends 

 several leagues in length and breadth, necessarily disperses instead 

 of congregating a populous neighborhood. " He is master of all 

 he surveys, — he is lord of the fowl and the brute," but his domin- 

 ion is a solitary and cheerless one. Few, and irregular posts 

 rarely bring him the news of what occurs in the great w T orld. 

 Visits are seldom and ceremoniously paid. He must find within 

 himself the constant springing source of vivacity and of an ambi- 

 tious desire for progress, or he must subside into mere animal exis- 

 tence. The latter is unfortunately in most instances the natural 

 result, and it is therefore not at all astonishing to find Mexican 

 planters or their mayordomos devoting all their energies to the 

 maintenance of the servile system we have described, whilst their 

 statute-book and constitution profess to have abolished slavery. 



Whilst such is the effect upon the character of the master or 

 his representative, it is natural to suppose that the character of the 

 servant will be equally degraded by the want of those new ideas 

 with which the constant refreshing intercourse of society ventilates 

 the mind. The Indian knows no world but that bounded by his 

 horizon. Slavery, when involuntary, may even be respected in the 

 sufferer, but the Indian who becomes a slave in spite of law, by 

 religious superstition, loathsome vices, and time-hallowed servility, 

 sinks far below the level of the African, who is sober, careful, faith- 

 ful to his master and his family, and either from imitation, or a 

 degree of natural dignity, seeks to acquire respectability among his 

 fellow slaves. 



" It is hardly possible," says Miihlenpfordt, " to judge of the 

 true character and intellectual capacity of the Iadian at a time when 

 he has but just partially recovered his rights as man, and has had 

 little opportunity of giving independent culture to his mental facul- 

 ties. Though the civic oppression under which the Spaniards and 

 Creoles held all the copper colored race and the colored people gen- 

 erally before the revolution, has, for the most part disappeared, yet 

 their emancipation has, as yet, only nominally taken place. Hier- 

 archial oppression has yet hardly decreased, and the clergy, both 



