Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/199

Rh in 1867; Sept. 15 and 16, declaration of independence by Hidalgo, 1810.

The area of the country is 778,590 square miles, estimated, for there has never been a complete survey; with a population of ten million, estimated, for there has never been an authentic census. The political divisions are four states on the northern frontier, five on the gulf, seven on the "grande oceano," and eleven in the interior; with one territory, and the federal district corresponding to our District of Columbia, except that the federal district is represented in Congress as a state.

While the form of the government is thus approvable, the spirit of it is represented as more or less despotic. Nor is it clear how it can be otherwise. I found it everywhere asserted that the masses of the people take no interest in politics, and the official vote for president sustains this. Why, then, should not the administration be despotic? The fountain will not rise higher than the source. The people are not homogeneous; their languages serve to keep them from understanding each other; the mutual hostility of Church and State widens the chasm.