Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 2.djvu/415

Rh of burthen, or an antiquated clumsy Mexican coach, were the only means of travelling. Of these, the litera, a species of palanquin in which the traveller reclined at ease upon his mattress and cushions, was by far the most comfortable, and the use of this convenient vehicle is still continued especially in the warmer parts of the country where exposure to the sun is dangerous, and into which the modern diligence or stage coach has not been introduced from the factories of the United States. In many portions of Mexico, where the transportation has been for centuries carried on by with their mules and jackasses, scarcely any thing of the original road remains, while the path that has been so long trodden by the single file Atajos of these useful beasts has been worn so deeply by their feet in the yielding soil or rock, that the animals themselves are often concealed by the steep sides of the gully. Thousands of sturdy Mexicans have for years been employed as in this business of mule-carriage. The "" is recognized as one of the traditionary, time honored, and almost constitutional institutions of the Republic, and it may easily be conceived that with so powerful a body of honest, industrious men opposed to any new scheme of transportation, it will require a long time for the enlightened requirements of extended commerce to displace it. The fidelity of this class has been already, elsewhere, alluded to; and whilst it is personally reliable and responsible, its members are scarcely ever attacked by the bands of robbers infesting the recesses of the mountains, and laying in wait for less numerous, resolute or organized way-farers. Millions were, and still are, often entrusted to them with perfect confidence by the government and the people.

Nevertheless, within the last fifteen years the growing manufactures of Mexico required a stouter means of transportation of heavy machinery than the limbs of a mule, and the consequence was that intelligent foreigners availing themselves of this want in the first instance, gradually introduced heavy wagons like those of the European roulage system, into which, by degrees, they forced a large portion of the bulky commercial freight which was to be borne from the coast into the interior. Simultaneously with this encroachment on the mule, the arriero, and the litera, appeared the American stage coach, built in New York; and together with the coach and its spirited horses, came the "Yankee driver," whose accommodating and daring character soon made him a favorite with those whose trade he in some measure mjured, though it did not serve to protect him or his passengers from the attacks of robbers. The line of diligences or coaches established from Vera Cruz to the capital, passing through