HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



Their fenfes ait very acute, efpecially that of fight, 

 'which they enjoy unimpaired to the greatefl: age. Their 

 conflitutions are found, and their health robuft. They 

 are entirely free of many diforders which are common 

 among the Spaniards, but of the epidemical difeafes to 

 which their country is occafionally fubje^t, they are the 

 principal vidims ; with them thefe difeafes begin, and 

 'with them they end. One never perceives in a Mexi- 

 can that {linking breath which is occafioned in other peo- 

 ple by the corruption of the humours or indigeftion. 

 Their conftitutions are phlegmatic ; but the pituitous 

 evacuations from their heads are very fcanty, and they 

 feldom fpit. They become grey-headed and bald earlier 

 than the Spaniards, and although mod of them die of 

 acute difeafes, it is not very uncommon among them to 

 attain the age of a hundred. 



They are now, and have ever been very moderate iii 

 eating, but their paffion for flrong liquors is carried to 

 the greatefl excefs. Formerly they were kept within 

 bounds by the feverity of the laws ; but now that thefe 

 liquors are grown fo common, and drunkennefs is unpu- 

 nifhed, one half of the people feem to have loft their 

 fenfes ; and this, together with the poor manner in which 

 they live, expofed to all the baneful impreffions of dif- 

 eafe, and deftitute of the means of corrcifting them, is 

 undoubtedly the principal caufe of the havoc which h 

 made among them by epidemical diforders. 



Their minds are at bottom in every refpe£l Hke thofe 

 of the other children of Adam, and endued with the fame 

 powers ; nor did the Europeans ever do lefs credit to 

 their own reafon than when they doubted of the ration- 

 ality of the Americans. The ftate of civilization among 

 the Mexicans, when they were firft known to the Spa- 

 VoL, I. O uiards, 



