Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/29

 of the most useful population of Vera Cruz—the former being the city authorities' laborers, the latter the city authorities' scavengers. It is a high crime to kill a zopilote. He is under the protection of the laws, and walks the streets with as much nonchalance and as "devil-may-care" a look as other "gentlemen in black," who pick the sins from our souls as these creatures pick impurities from the streets.

The Mole, or quay, is of good masonry and furnished with stairs and cranes for the landing of goods, though from the great violence of the ocean during the Northers, and the great neglect of proper repairs, it is likely to be entirely ruined. In heavy weather the sea makes a clear breach over it; yet this, and the Castle of San Juan on a land-spit near a mile off, are the only protections for the shipping of all nations and the commerce of more than half the Republic!

Passing from the Mole you enter the city by an unfinished gateway, near which Santa Anna lost his leg during the attack of the French in 1838. Beyond this portal is a large square, which will be surrounded with custom-house buildings—though there is now scarce a symptom of them except in the granite stones, most of which have been imported from the United States. From this spot, a short walk to the left leads you to the arcade of a street, and you soon find yourself in the public square of the city, which, though small in its dimensions, is neat and substantial. On the east, north, and west, it is bounded by noble ranges of edifices, built over light arches—the one to the eastward, with its back to the sea, being the former Governor's residence, and still appropriated to the civil and military purposes of the State. On the south of the square is the parish church, with its walls blackened with sea-damps and zopilotes.

The streets of Vera Cruz, crossing each other at right angles, are well paved with smooth pebbles, and the side-walks are covered with a cement resembling brescia. The houses, in general, are exceedingly well constructed to suit the climate, and though not of very imposing architecture, yet with their flat roofs, parti-colored awnings and display of women and flowers from their balconied windows, make the city both cool and picturesque. Upon the whole, I must confess that I have seen worse looking cities than Vera Cruz, even in the "picture-land" of Italy; and when, from the roofs of the dwellings, I look at the open sea in front, the exceedingly clean streets, and the desolate coast of sand and stunted shrubbery, which extends north and south as far as the eye can reach, I am at a loss to know why it is so cursed with disease. St. Augustine, St. Mary's, and a hundred places along our southern sea-coast, have infinitely more the appearance of nests for malaria.

It is said, that in the early period of the history of this country. Vera Cruz was not so sickly as of late years, and that, although there were occasional attacks of violent fever, it was not until 1699 that the Black Vomit made its appearance. In that year an English vessel arrived in the port with a cargo of slaves, and with them came this fatal disease. The Spanish chronicles of the town, of that date, give the most