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238, to return no more. It remains to be seen whether any thing can be effected, by a better system of government, for a race of men composed of such heterogeneous elements. In 1824 they were nothing but a public nuisance. It was hardly possible to pass through those parts of the towns, of which they had possession; and had it not been for the extreme purity of the air, the accumulation of filth before their doors must infallibly have produced a pestilence. The fear of wandering, by mistake, into their territories, which we did, once or twice, on our return from distant excursions, induced us latterly, to prefer the Tacubaya road to any other, because it led at once into the open country, and afforded an easy communication with the spacious avenues, which extend from the Chăpūltĕpēc gate in different directions, for nearly two leagues round the town.

Of the state of society in 1824 it is unnecessary here to speak, as we saw the Capital under very unfavourable circumstances. A civil war, carried on with unexampled cruelty on both sides, had desolated the country for thirteen years; and, although the contest with Spain was at length decided, the disturbances which had arisen in consequence of Iturbide's elevation to the throne, had terminated only a few months before our arrival. The form of government to be adopted was not definitively determined upon; for, though the Provinces united in a cordial detestation of the yoke of the