Page:Narrative of a Voyage around the World - 1843.djvu/206

152 of rice, sugar, dyewoods, and cotton, and of these but a trifling quantity.

The following remarks of a mercantile friend will best illustrate the present state of trade:

"The environs of Acapulco are not badly populated, but the wants of these people, the climate being tropical, are but few, and, like the neighbouring Indians, their principal dress consists of the manta, although they use a little more finery, the men wearing Chinese sashes, (fasas or bandas,) and preferring linen to cotton for their shirts.

The women dress in linen shifts, using navy blues, and calicoes for their petticoats. Stockings are not in use, and for their head gear they entirely make use of the riboza or Mexican shawl, made in the interior. Their hats, shoes, and other trifling articles of wearing apparel are all made in the interior; so that articles for sale on the spot, that can be imported into Acapulco, are reduced to very few.

"The importation of manta is prohibited, being supplied from the interior. Creas, Russian duck, prints, a trifle of fine linen, such as Bretagnes, Estopillas, &c., a few China goods, as sashes, twine, silk, &c., but principally platillas of middling and ordinary quality, and navy blues. The consumption would not exceed two hundred dollars annually."

Thus far then the commerce of the interior appears to meet their necessities, and the wants of the population are not likely to attract cargoes to this port.

My friend concludes,—