Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/364

 ." The estimate of the whole cost of this gigantic enterprise, and its necessary repairs, until the year 1880, is 88,000,000; yet, with all the expenditure and vast labor, it may still prove, in certain cases, only efficacious against a portion of the waters that are collected in the valley. South of the Capital are the lakes of Chalco and Xochimilco, and their level is more than a yard higher than that of the great Square of Mexico.

This Desague, and the noble aqueducts by which the city is supplied, are the only very great enterprises, of this character, in the country; and they are all owing to the energy of the old Spanish government, which emulated the magnificence of the Romans in its public improvments, connected with elegance and comfort. During the royal sway the roads, also, were properly made and repaired; but since the Revolution, when most of them were torn up to prevent the passage of troops, or destroyed by the transit of artillery, they have been abandoned to the weather and travel, so that in fact, (with the exception of the highway to Vera Cruz, which has recently been improved,) there is scarcely a road in the Republic that does not resemble more the deserted bed of a mountain stream, than a work intended to facilitate communication. The idea of " internal improvements" has never entered into the calculation of these people;—though, some years since, a scheme was set on foot to construct a railway from the coast to the Capital, and its practicability proved by a scientific recornoissance. Adventures of this character will be the first evidences of the growth of mind among the masses in Mexico, when they are taught to believe that they have other sources of wealth besides mines, and that riches do not consist alone In gold and silver. Until that period, the patient and toilsome mule will continue to be the means of transportation of the chief burdens from the sea to the interior.

If we suppose it to be perfectly practicable to make a railway of about 350 miles in length, with all its sinuosities, from Vera Cruz to the Capital, I think the following estimate may be reasonably made of the profits of such an enterprise; especially, when it is recollected that the distance will be passed in less than 24 hours, instead of four days, (as at present in the diligence,) and from eighteen to twenty-five days, by mules and wagons.

It may be estimated, that about fifty thousand tons are imported annually into Vera Cruz. A ton weight is transported usually on about seven mules, each mule load being worth $25, from Vera Cruz to Mexico.