CHAPTER XV.

Scientific Institutions-Mineria-Academy of Fine Arts-Absence of Benevolent Institutions-Health of the Climate-Freedom from Intemperance-Fruits-Education of the Common People.

HUMBOLDT, who visited Mexico in 1804, says that the scientific institutions of the city of Mexico were at that time equal if not superior to those of the United States. I am disposed to think that La Guera Rodriguez, the beautiful lady who enchanted him so much, was not the only thing in Mexico which he saw couleur du rose. The only institution of any character in the city is the Mineria-the College of Mines, as its name implies. The building itself is altogether magnificent. It is very spacious, and built of hewn stone in the most perfect architecture. When that is said nearly all is said which can be said with truth. The professorships are very few, chiefly those connected with physical science, and the chairs filled by persons of extremely moderate attainments. The philosophical apparatus is altogether contemptible; and what is still more remarkable, the mineralogical collection is very small, and contains nothing at all remarkable. General Tornel, the President, is, as I have always said, an accomplished man and an elegant writer. But his whole life has been spent in the excitement and bustle of politics, and of Mexican politics, and it is altogether impossible that his scientific attainments can be even respectable with reference to the position which he occupies.

The University, which was founded in 1531, is in a declining condition, if indeed it is not already extinct. There are some other colleges as they are called, but they are scarcely respectable primary schools.

The Academy of Fine Arts is, I think, very much below the college of the Mineria. There are some very good casts in plaster of the most celebrated works in statuary, and a great many very inferior paintings. There is not in all Mexico even a tolerable portrait painter.

One would suppose that in the dogged resolution which they seem to have formed, not to advance in anything with the age in which they live, that an exception would have been found in the matter of coinage of the precious metals in which their country abounds, and with which they contribute so much to the currency of the world-but it is not so. The process is, in almost every particular, the same that it was at the period of the conquest. They have not even a steam-engine in the mint in the city of Mexico, which has doubtless coined far more of the precious metals than any other in the world.

There are scarcely any of those charitable institutions to which we are accustomed in all our principal cities. There are more of these, I have no doubt, in either of the cities of Boston or Philadelphia than in Mexico.

There was something like an asylum for the insane-but during my residence in Mexico, General Valencia, under some claim which he set up to the ground and building, turned all the lunatics into the streets, as I was informed.

There is a very large and well-arranged Hospital, which was founded by Cortes out of his own private funds-the Hospital of Jesus. Until a very few years past his bones were deposited there, as he directed in his will; but they have been carried to Naples by the Duke of Monteleone,

the only branch of the family of the Conqueror of Mexico which is not now extinct. I was told in Mexico that he purchased these remains for twenty-five thousand dollars -if as an act of filial piety, it was a most mistaken one. I have also heard that in the frequent émeutes of the Mexican populace, and their rage against the gachupines (European Spaniards), that the tomb of Cortes was in danger of being desecrated, and that it was on that account that his bones have been removed.

There is, however, scarcely any other city where charitable institutions are so little needed. I have never seen a population where congenital deformities are so rare as in Mexico, and I am sure I saw nearly all which existed. Mendicity is not forbidden, and any serious deformity is, as far as a security for subsistence is concerned, a rare good fortune, and they are sure to make the most of it.

Blindness is not uncommon, resulting, I suppose, from the extreme rarity of the air in that elevated region. I was surprised to hear, mild and equable as the climate is, that from the same reason which I have just mentioned, it is fatal in all pulmonary affections. Although there is not perhaps in the world a healthier region than the table-lands of Mexico, their bills of mortality (if they had any such thing, which they have not, or statistics of any kind) would exhibit very few cases of remarkable longevity. On the contrary, I think that the Mexicans are a remarkably shortlived race. This must result from climate alone. They indulge less in excesses of any kind than almost any other people. If I may judge from what I myself saw I should say that in the use of spirits no people are more temperate. The Spaniards are characteristically so everywhere, and they constitute almost exclusively the better classes. The lower classes are restrained by the laws; drunkenness

being there, as it should be everywhere, punishable as a misdemeanor. I am sure that during my residence in Mexico I did not see a dozen men drunk, and I have seen assemblies of fifty and a hundred thousand people without one case of drunkenness. As to intemperance amongst respectable people, it is almost unknown. There is, it is true, a single exception, and that of a very distinguished man, and that may be the reason, amongst others, that he has not attained the highest distinction in his country. It is very rarely that you will see a Mexican gentleman drink anything stronger than claret wine, an immense quantity of which is sold there. They are equally temperate in eating; the lower classes because they cannot get the means of indulgence. Although the grass is green the year round, and from the sparseness of the population, one would suppose every man would be able to own his small farm and stock of cattle-yet it is not so. The lands of the country belong to a few large proprietors, some of whom own tracts of eighty and one hundred leagues square, with herds of sixty and eighty thousand head of cattle grazing upon them, whilst the Indian laborers upon these farms rarely have meat enough.

I question very much if there is any population in Europe, not even the Irish or the French, who eat less meat than the Mexicans; but there is certainly no country where extreme poverty brings with it so few sufferings. The climate is so mild, that clothing of any sort is only required for decency, not for comfort. The constant succession of fruits of every variety is, in itself, a resource which few other countries offer. It is not uncommon that one of those large estates, of which I have spoken, furnishes a climate in which every vegetable production will not only grow, but which is perfectly congenial to its growth, the lowlands

producing all the fruits and vegetables of the tropics, and the elevation gradually increasing to a region of perpetual snow. And then there is the banana, so easily cultivated; and Humboldt says, that the same spot of ground, planted in wheat, which will support one man, if planted in the banana, will support twenty-five. Besides the aversion of the Indian race to labor of any sort, may not this be the great reason for the universal indolence of the Mexican people? It is necessity alone which, generally speaking, forces men to toil; and that which is true of individuals is true of nations, which are but the aggregations of individuals. The great mass of the population of Mexico have no inducement to labor as we do, for all they desire is a mere subsistence, and the bounties of Nature supply them with that; and as to any of those honorable aspirations to better their condition and advance themselves in life, they are as ignorant as the cattle which graze their wide plains and die.

The apples and peaches of Mexico are not good, the latter decidedly inferior. The pears are very fine. They have one species of this fruit which is decidedly the best that I have ever seen; it is nearly the size of a goose-egg, and its flavor as delicious as that of the famous Philadelphia pear. All the fruits of the tropics-the orange, pine-apple, banana, mango, cherimoya, and last and least in size, but most exquisite in flavor, the tuna-are produced in Mexico in great perfection. I have nowhere eaten a fruit more refreshing and delicious than the tuna. It is the produce of one of the infinite varieties of the cactus, of which I have seen twenty different varieties growing on an acre of land. One of these varieties runs up to the height of thirty or forty feet, in the form of a beautifully-fluted column, and is used to enclose gardens, by planting close together. That