170 MEXICO. 
distinctness. Besides this, the foliage is fuller, the forests thicker, the 
sky milder, and everything betokens the sway of a bland and tropical 
climate. 
A bend of the road around a precipice, revealed to us the town of 
Cuernavaca, lying beyond the forest in the lap of the valley, while far in 
the east the mountains were lost in the plain, like a distant line of sea. 
Our company gathered together, on the announcement of the first sight of 
our port of destination for the night. It was decided, by the novices in 
Mexican travelling, that it could not be more distant than a couple of 
leagues at farthest ; but long was the weary ride, descending and descend- 
mg, with scarcely a perceptible decrease of space, before we reached 
the city. 
In the course of this afternoon we passed through several Indian vil- 
lages, and saw numbers of people at work in the fields by the road side. 
Two things struck me : first, the miserable hovels in which the Indians 
are lodged, in comparison with which a decent dog-kennel at home is a 
comfortable household ; and second, the fact that this, although the Sab- 
bath, was no day of repose to these ever- working, but poor and thriftless 
people. Many of the wretched creatures were stowed away under a 
roof of thatch, stuck on the bare ground, with a hole left at one end to 
crawl in f 
What can be the benefit of a Republican form of government to masses 
of such a population ? Th.ey have no ambition to improve their condi- 
tion, or in so plenteous a country it would be improved ; they are con- 
tent to live and lie like the beasts of the field ; they have no qualifications 
for self-government, and they can have no hope, when a life of such toil 
avails not to avoid such misery. Is it possible for such men to become 
Republicans ? It appears to me that the life of a negro, under a good 
master, in our country, is far better than the beastly degradation of the 
Indian here. With us, he is at least a man ; but in Mexico, even the 
instincts of his human nature are scarcely preserved. 
It is true that these men are/ree, and have the unquestionable liberty, 
after raising their crop of fruits or vegetables, to trot with it fifty or sixty 
miles, on foot, to market, where' the produce of their toil is, in a few 
hours, spent, either at the gambling table or the pulque shop. After this 
they have the liberty, as soon as they get sober, to trot back again to their 
kennels in the mountains, if they are not previously lassoed by some re- 
cruiting sergeant, and forced to " volunteer" in the army. Yet what is 
the worth of such purposeless liberty or the worth of such purposeless 
life ? There is not a single ingredient of a noble-spirited and highminded 
mountain peasantry in them. Mixed in their races, they have been en- 
slaved and degraded by the conquest; ground into abject servility du- 
ring the Colonial government ; corrupted in spirit by the superstitious 
rites of an ignorant priesthood ; and now, without hope, without education, 
without other interest in their welfare, than that of some good-hearted 
