Page:Memoir of a tour to northern Mexico.djvu/85

Rh, embraces an area of about 940,000, or, including the old province of Texas, already lost by Mexico, of about 1,200,000 English square miles. The greatest part of this territory has never been occupied or even explored by the Mexicans, and the thin population in the settled parts of it proves that they never had put great value upon it. The greater inducements which the South of Mexico offered on account of mines, climate, commerce, etc., have concentrated there the seven or eight millions of inhabitants that compose the Mexican nation, allowing but a small portion of them for the northern provinces. One half of this northern territory may in fact be a desert, and entirely worthless for agriculture; but to a great commercial nation like the United States, with new States springing up on the Pacific, it will nevertheless be valuable for the new connexions that it would open with the Pacific, for the great mineral resources of the country, and for its peculiar adaptation for stock-raising. Mexico itself would lose very little by the States composing this territory, as they always have been more a burden to it than a source of revenue. All the connexion which heretofore has existed between Mexico and those States, was, that the general government taxed them as highly as they would submit to, which never was very great, and dragged them as far as possible into the revolutionary vortex in which the South of Mexico was constantly whirling; but it never afforded them any protection against hostile Indians; never stopped their internal strifes, or ever promoted the spread of intellect or industry–in short, it heaped, instead of blessings, all the curses of the worst kind of government upon them.

Should the United States take possession of this country, the official leeches who consider themselves privileged to rule in those States will, of course, make some opposition–if not openly, at least by intrigue; but the mass of the people will soon perceive that they have gained by the change; and if to their national feelings some due regard is paid, they will after some years become reconciled to their new government, and, though Mexican still, they may nevertheless become good citizens of the Republic of the North.

Policy, as well as humanity, demands, in my humble opinion, such an extension of the "area of freedom" for mankind. If deserts and mountain chains are wanted as the best barriers between States, this line affords both these advantages by the Bolson de Mapimi in the east, and the extensive Sierra Madre in the west.

On the gulf of California, the important harbor of Guaymas would fall above that line. What sort of communication between Guaymas and the Rio Grande might be considered the best, a closer exploration of the country must decide; but a railroad would most likely in the course of years connect the Rio Grande with that harbor, and give a new thoroughfare from the Atlantic to the Pacific, for commerce as well as for the emigration to California and Oregon. The distance from Laredo to Guaymas, in a straight line, is about 770 miles. The plan of such a railroad, even if the height of the Sierra Madre in the west would not allow it to be carried in a straight line to the Pacific, but from Chihuahua in a northwestern direction to the Gila, would therefore be less chimerical than the much talked of