States. The owners of the estates (haciendas) receive laborers into their service. These laborers are ignorant, destitute, half-naked Indians; certain wages are agreed upon, which the employer pays in food, raiment, and such articles as are absolutely necessary; an account is kept of all these things, and neither the laborer nor his family can ever leave the estate until all arrearages are paid. These of course, he has no means of paying but by the proceeds of his labor, which, being barely sufficient for his subsistence, he never can get free; and he is not only a slave for life, but his children after him, unless the employer chooses to release him from his service, which he often finds it convenient to do when the laborer becomes old or diseased. Whatever may be the theoretical protection from corporal punishment which the law affords him, the Mexican slave is, practically, no better off in this respect than is the African slave in this country. All the laborers in Mexico are Indians; all the large proprietors Spaniards, or of mixed blood. I say all; there may be a few exceptions, but they are very few of either. So of the army; the higher officers are all white men, or of mixed blood, the soldiers all Indians. The cathedral in Vera Cruz is a very decent Gothic building, with the same profusion of paintings and statuary which is to be found in all Mexican churches: making up in quantity what is wanting in quality. There may be seen there a wax figure of the Saviour laid in the tomb, of the life size, and singularly beautiful. There are three representations of the crucifixion, as large as life, and of different shades of color, each retaining all the features and lineaments to which we are accustomed in the portraits of Christ, somewhat strangely combined with the peculiarities of the physiognomy of two of the three races which con stitute the inhabitants of Vera Cruz-a pious fraud, no doubt intended to flatter each of those races for the good of their souls. A new and very handsome custom house has just been completed on the mole at Vera Cruz. The material of which it is built is brought from Quincy, in Massachusetts, although there is stone equally good within ten miles of Vera Cruz,— a fact strikingly illustrative of the characters of the people of the two countries. Such comparisons, or rather contrasts, are, indeed, constantly presented to the American* travelling in Mexico. Mexico was colonized just one hundred years before Massachusetts. Her first settlers were the noblest spirits of Spain in her Augustan age, the epoch of Cervantes, Cortes, Pizarro, Columbus, Gonzalvo de Cordova, Cardinal Ximenes, and the great and good Isabella. Massachusetts was settled by the poor pilgrims of Plymouth, who carried with them nothing but their own hardy virtues, and indomitable energy. Mexico, with a rich soil, and a climate adapted to the production of everything which grows out of the earth, and possessing every metal used by manMassachusetts, with a sterile soil and ungenial climate, and no single article for exportation but ice and rock-How have these blessings, profusely given by Providence, been improved on the one hand, and obstacles overcome on the other? What is now the respective condition of the two countries? In productive industry, wide-spread diffusion of knowledge, public institutions of every kind, general happiness, and continually increasing prosperity; in letters, arts, * Whenever I use the term American, I mean a citizen of the United States: as when we say Bonaparte, we mean Napoleon; and it is so understood everywhere. morals, religion; in everything which makes a people great, there is not in the world, and there never was in the world, such a commonwealth as Massachusetts. "There she is! look at her!"-and Mexico. 1 CHAPTER II. Line of Stages between Vera Cruz and Mexico-Noble Disinterestedness of THERE is a very good line of stages, making three trips every week between Vera Cruz and Mexico, which has entirely superseded all other modes of conveyance. Although the fare is enormously high, yet it is much cheaper than the litera, more expeditious and on every account more pleasant-except that the literas are very rarely robbed. This line was established by an American some years since, but is now owned by a rich Mexican-who is daily growing wealthier by it. The horses are all Mexican, generally small, but of great spirit and durability; seven horses are generally driven, two at the wheels, then three abreast and two more in the lead. The stages are built at Troy, New York, and the drivers are all Americans-and a most worthy set of fellows they are. I cannot forbear to mention here a matter honorable to two of my countrymen. When the prisoners of the Texan Santa Fé expedition were liberated by General Santa Anna, in June, 1842, they were furnished with as much money as was supposed to be necessary to take them home. But being unable to procure a vessel, and consequently detained some time in Vera Cruz, they were without money or credit, and in the midst of disease and death. Mr. L. S. Hargoos, an American merchant, with a liberality and hu CHAP. II.] DISINTERESTEDNESS OF A STAGE Driver. 11 manityof which few men would have been capable in like circumstances, advanced them between ten and fifteen thousand dollars. Some time afterwards he travelled to Mexico in the stage, and rode outside with the driver Nathan Gilland, a native of New York. Gilland asked him if it was true that he had advanced so large a sum to the Texans as he had heard. Mr. Hargoos told him that it was. The next morning about the time the stages were starting from Perote, the one returning to Jalapa, the other going to Mexico, Gilland took Mr. Hargoos aside and said to him, "Sir, I do not think it right that you should suffer all the loss by the Texans-you knew none of them and only relieved them because they were Americans; now, I think it nothing but fair that all the Americans in Mexico should share the loss, and here are two hundred dollars which I am willing to give for my part of it." "Very well, Nathan,” said Mr. Hargoos, "if I should ever stand in need of two hundred dollars, I will certainly call upon you." Foreigners ridicule the indiscriminate use which we make of the term gentleman, and its application to stage drivers and persons in similar stations in life. May it never be more abused than by its application to one capable of thus feeling and acting! It would be unjust to the other American drivers on the same line not to say that I do not doubt that every one of them would have done the same thing; I do not believe that any one of them gave less than five hundred dollars and some of them twice that sum to the Texan prisoners during their confinement in Mexico. The stage leaves Vera Cruz at eleven o'clock at night, and arrives the next evening about three o'clock at Jalapa. For the first few miles from Vera Cruz the road passes along a sandy sea-beach, and then commences the ascent of the mountain which is continued almost without interrup |