WANT OF EXPLORATION MODERN ADVANCEMENT. 345 



lard has become a habit of the Mexican. It may, in truth, be said 

 that the spirit of travel does not rule in Mexico, and that her people 

 are stationary. Railways do not traverse her valleys and plains, nor 

 do electric telegraphs convey the thoughts of her people thousands 

 of miles in a minute. Even the mail system is expensive, incom- 

 plete and inadequate. Neither a steamboat nor a locomotive belongs 

 to the nation. 



In addition to all these habitual, accidental and geographical dif- 

 ficulties of travelling over and exploring this mountain country, its 

 constant revolutionary state since the rebellion against Spain has 

 tended to retain people as much as possible either in the neighbor- 

 hood of their families or of their business and interests. Nor has 

 scientific education been extended sufficiently to form a large or en- 

 thusiastic class of engineers who would have traversed the land and 

 combined the results of their observations. A few scattered students 

 have, indeed, published detached essays upon portions of the Repub- 

 lic, and the Comision de Estadistica Militar is now engaged in 

 gathering statistical and geographical reports of the several States. 

 But the elements from which these bulletins are constructed do not 

 seem to be collected upon any uniform system of very responsible 

 scientific inquiry. The local authorities from whom much of the 

 numerical information is necessarily obtained, if they are connected 

 with any of the branches of taxation, or revenue collection, are gen- 

 erally unreliable or corrupt, for, in consequence of the system of 

 peculation which has been carried on during the late disorganized 

 epoch of Mexican history, it was their interest to conceal rather 

 than to disclose facts, especially when those facts manifested the 

 great value or production of the region over which they presided. 



Nevertheless, amid all these sad excuses for insufficiency or in- 

 accuracy, we may congratulate Mexico upon the effort which she is 

 now making to redeem herself from the past opprobrium. The war 

 with the United States has taught her many things, social as well 

 as political. Education is beginning to be more valued and ex- 

 tended. Periodicals and newspapers are more freely published and 

 diffused. Their leading articles and scientific communications show 

 that new classes of writers as well as politicians are coming readily 

 into the field in a period of assured peace and order. These two 

 elements of national progress will enable. Mexico to become ac- 

 quainted with herself, and when her students disclose the result of 

 their discoveries, we shall be glad to see our imperfect but honest 

 efforts superseded by a work that will confer honor upon Spanish 

 science and literature. 



