existence, notwithstanding, from the indolent habits of the Indians. Like the natives of Hindoostan, they are contented with the smallest quantity of aliment on which life can be supported, and scarcely extend their cultivation, whether of maize, potatoes, or wheat, farther than it is necessary for present consumption. A considerable number of hands, employed in the mines and in the transport of merchandise, depend for their subsistence on the labour of these rude agriculturists. Whenever, therefore, a great drought or any other cause has damaged a crop of maize, this country exhibits the afflicting spectacle of a scarcity, and of those epidemical diseases which never fail to follow in its train; a striking exemplification of the all-powerful operation of industry, that while we, in the comparatively barren regions of the north, have become almost strangers to the existence of famine, our fellowcreatures are exposed to periodical want under the torrid zone, where the germ of abundance seems every where scattered. Another advantage over Peru, which is possessed by Mexico, consists in the treatment of the labourers in the mines. In Peru, the Indians are still subject to the barbarous law of the Mita, which compels them to remove from their homes to distant provinces. for the purpose of toiling at the extraction of subterraneous treasure, and exposes them to a change of climate highly pernicious to constitutions which appear less fitted than the Europeans to support rapid transitions. In New Spain, at least during the last half century, the labour of the mines has become entirely free: no law compels the Indian to follow this kind of labour, nor to prefer one mine to another and when he happens to be displeased with his master, he may repair to a different one with the same freedom which is exercised by a mechanic in Europe. Extensive as are the mines of Mexico, the total number of persons employed in them does not exceed 30,000; among whom the deaths are scarcely more numerous than among other classes of the population. The art of mining is in a state of progressive improvement, and machinery is gradually taking the place of bodily labour. It was the carriage of ponderous burdens from the bottom to the mouth of mines, which produced the exhaustion of the constitution in a greater degree than the continuance of subterraneous labour, or the amalgamation of the minerals above ground. The investment of capital in mining has for many ages been accounted a hazardous undertaking; and the Baron de Humboldt gives (p.226.) a striking picture of the extensive gains and losses with which it is attended. We are disposed, however, to infer that the working of the old established mines is productive of that regular but limited profit, which almost A a 4 ; always always follows a free competition in trade; while the revolutions of fortune are confined to new speculations, undertaken, as speculations often are, in a remote and unknown territory. We were curious to learn the author's opinion in regard to a point which has of late been greatly canvassed; the practicability of a canal through the American isthmus, to connect the Atlantic with the Pacific ocean. The lake of Nicaragua has been mentioned by several projectors as likely to afford facility to the execution of this plan: but it appears (Vol. i. p. 24.) that the nature of the ground through which it would be necessary to cut is very little known; and even if no serious difficulty of this description occurred, considerable objections arise from the periodical storms along the coast. The isthmus of Panama, though marked out during three centuries as the spot for a navigable canal, has never been surveyed with sufficient accuracy. M. de Humboldt acknowleges the facilities presented by the river Chagre, but is greatly at a loss to determine the nature of the ground from Cruces, the spot at which that river ceases to be navigable to the Pacific ocean. He is, however, strongly impressed with the difficulties of forming a canal in this quarter, and seems inclined to give a preference to the more easy but less commodious expedient of causeways. From the port of Cupica, situated on the Pacific ocean to the south-east of Panama, the country is nearly level for several leagues inland, till we reach a navigable river which flows into the Atlantic. Here, though at the expence of a considerable Circuit, it would be possible to establish a communication by water between the two seas. The author justly ridicules the vulgar notion of a great difference of altitude between the At lantic and the Pacific oceans, and is inclined to think that it cannot, at the utmost, exceed twenty feet. It has been com mon in all ages to imagine that, of two neighbouring seas, the one was much higher than the other; a notion founded merely on ocular impressions, than which nothing is more fal lacious in the computation of levels. The troubles on the continent of Europe, and the disturbed state of Ireland, have led during the present age to consider, able emigrations to America, and particularly to the United States, The increase of population, however, to the transatlantic hemisphere, from this cause, is small, and even insigni ficant, when placed in comparison with the rapid augmentation of the settled inhabitants. We are disposed to think that the estimate of ten thousand considerably exceeds the average ar rival of strangers throughout the whole of the United States; and we have the authority of M. de Humboldt, (p.128.) that Mexico does not receive one-tenth of that number;—a trifling proportion proportion of that annual increase which is computed to lead to a doubling of the whole population in twenty-five years. The aboriginal Indians form nearly two-fifths of the inhabitants of Mexico, and partake, in a considerable degree, of the progressive augmentations. The tradition of the early reduction of their numbers by Spanish oppression appears, as far as it regards the continent at least, to have been greatly exaggerated. M. de H. describes at some length the manners and character of the Indians; and the part which treats of this subject will, we are induced to think, possess considerable interest for our readers : The Indians of New Spain bear a general resemblance to those who inhabit Canada, Florida, Peru, and Brasil. They have the same swarthy and copper colour, flat and smooth hair, small beard, squat body, long eye, with the corner directed upwards towards the temples, prominent cheek bones, thick lips, and an expression of gentleness in the mouth, strongly contrasted with a gloomy and severe look. The American race, after the hyperborean race, is the least numerous; but it occupies the greatest space on the globe. Over a million and a half of square leagues, from the Terra del Fuego islands to the river St. Laurence and Baring's straits, we are struck at the first glance with the general resemblance in the features of the inhabitants. We think we perceive that they all descend from the same stock, notwithstanding the enormous diversity of language which separates them from one another. However, when we reflect more seriously on this family likeness, after living longer among the indigenous Americans, we discover that celebrated travellers, who could only observe a few individuals on the coasts, have, singularly exaggerated the analogy of form among the Americans.' An European, when he decides on the great resemblance among the capper-coloured races, is subject to a particular illusion. He is struck with a complexion so different from our own, and the uniformity of this complexion conceals for a long time from him the diversity of individual features. The new colonist can hardly at first distinguish the indigenous, because his eyes are less fixed on the gentle melancholic or ferocious expression of the countenance than on the red coppery colour and dark luminous and coarse and glossy hair, so glossy indeed that we should believe it to be in a constant state of humectation.' • Those Europeans who have sailed on the great rivers Orinoco and Amazons, and have had occasion to see a great number of tribes assembled under the monastical hierarchy in the missions, must have observed that the American race contains nations whose features differ as essentially from one another, as the numerous varieties of the race of Caucasus, the Circassians, Moors, and Persians differ from one another.' The Indians of New Spain have a more swarthy complexion than the inhabitants of the warmest climates of South America. This fact is so much the more remarkable, as in the race of Caucasus, which may be also called the European Arab race, the people of the south have not so fair a skin as those of the north. Though many of the Asiatic nations who inundated Europe in the sixth century had a very dark complexion, it appears, however, that the shades of colour observable among the white race are less owing to their origin or mixture than to the local influence of the climate. This influence appears to have almost no effect on the Americans and negroes.-We found the people of the Rio Negro swarthier than those of the Lower Orinoco, and yet the banks of the first of these rivers enjoy a much cooler climate than the more northern regions. In the forests of Guiana, especially near the sources of the Orinoco, are several tribes of a whitish complexion, the Guaicas, Guajaribs, and Arigues. Yet these tribes have never mingled with Europeans, and are surrounded with other tribes of a dark brown hue. The Indians in the torrid zone who inhabit the most elevated plains of the Cordillera of the Andes, and those who under the 45° of south latitude live by fishing among the islands of the archipelago of Chonos, have as coppery a complexion as those who under a burning climate cultivate bananas in the narrowest and deepest vallies of the equinoxial region. We every where perceive that the colour of the American depends very little on the local position in which we see him. The Mexicans are more swarthy than the Indians of Quito and New Grenada, who inhabit a climate completely analogous; and we even see that the tribes dispersed to the north of the Rio Gila are less brown than those in the neighbourhood of the kingdom of Guatimala. This deep colour continues to the coast nearest to Asia.'— The Mexicans, particularly those of the Aztec and Otomite race, have more beard than I ever saw in any other Indians of South America. Almost all the Indians in the neighbourhood of the capital wear small mustachios; and this is even a mark of the tributary cast. These mustachios, which modern travellers have also found among the inhabitants of the north-west coast of America, are so much the more curious, as celebrated naturalists have left the question undetermined, whether the Americans have naturally no beard and no hair on the rest of their bodies, or whether they pluck them carefully out. Without entering here into physiological details, I can affirm that the Indians who inhabit the torrid zone of South America have generally some beard; and that this beard increases when they shave themselves. But many individuals are born entirely without beard or hair on their bodies.'— However, this apparent want of beard is by no means peculiar to the American race; for many hordes of Eastern Asia, and especially several tribes of African negroes, have so little beard that we should be almost tempted to deny entirely its existence. The negroes of Congo and the Caribs, two eminently robust races, and frequently of a colossal stature, prove that to look upon a beardless chin as a sure sign of the degeneration and physical weakness of the human species is a mere physiological dream.' The Indians of New Spain, those at least subject to the Euro pean domination, generally attain a pretty advanced age. Peaceable cultivators, and collected these six hundred years in villages, they are are not exposed to the accidents of the wandering life of the hunters and warriors of the Mississippi and the savannas of the Rio Gila. Accustomed to uniform nourishment of an almost entirely vegetable nature, that of their maize and cereal gramina, the Indians would undoubtedly attain a very great longevity if their constitution were not weakened by drunkenness. Their intoxicating liquors are rum, a fermentation of maize and the root of the jatropha, and especially the wine of the country, made of the juice of the agave americana, called pulque.' The vice of drunkenness is, however, less general among the Indians than is generally believed. Those Europeans who have travelled to the east of the Alleghany mountains, between the Ohio and the Missoury, will with difficulty believe that, in the forests of Guiana, and on the banks of the Orinoco, we saw Indians who shewed an aversion for the brandy which we made them taste. There are several Indian tribes, very suber, whose fermented beverages are too weak to intoxicate.'— It is by no means uncommon to see in Mexico, in the temperate zone half way up the Cordillera, natives, and especially women, reach a hundred years of age.. This old age is generally comfortable; for the Mexican and Peruvian Indians preserve their muscular strength to the last.' ، The copper-coloured Indians enjoy one great physical advantage, which is undoubtedly owing to the great simplicity in which their - ancestors lived for thousands of years. They are subject to almost no deformity. I never saw a hunch-backed Indian; and it is extremely rare to see any of them who squint, or are lame in the arm or leg.' This account of the physical character of the Indians is followed by observations on their moral constitution: We perceive in the Mexican Indian neither that mobility of sensation, gesture, or feature, nor that activity of mind for which several nations of the equinoxial regions of Africa are so advantageously distinguished. There cannot exist a more marked contrast than that between the impetuous vivacity of the Congo negro, and the apparent filegm of the Indian. From a feeling of this contrast the Indian women not only prefer the negroes to the men of their own race, but also to the Europeans. The Mexican Indian is grave, melancholic, and silent, so long as he is not under the influence of intoxicating liquors. This gravity is particularly remarkable in Indian children, who at the age of four or five display much more intelligence and maturity than white children. The Mexican loves to throw a mysterious air over the most indifferent actions. The most violent passions are never painted in his features; and there is something frightful in seeing him pass all at once from absolute a state of violent and unrestrained agitation. The Peruvian Indian possesses more gentleness of manners; the energy of the Mexican degenerates into harshness. These differences may have their origin in the different religions and different governments of the two coun tries in former times.' repose to ، The |