Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/41

Rh He has effected great reforms in the Custom House and is called a "a square man" by the importing merchants who, however, dislike him because he exacts full and complete obedience to the law, which has put a stop to the old system of reductions on imports, in favor of the great merchants, to the ruin of the small ones. Under his administration, Manzanillo, from yielding five hundred thousand dollars per annum in revenue to the Federal Government, has come to yield $1,500,000. and all without a single wagon-road into the interior in any direction. When roads already commenced are finished, a wharf built, and some other improvements made, this place will grow into a thriving port, and have a grand commerce.

Give Mexico ten years of uninterrupted peace, and Manzanillo, with its natural advantages and the expediture of a small sum for improvements, would become an important seaport. The town is somewhat unhealthy because the lake gets low and breeds fever and ague during the dry season, but the Europeans and Americans appear to suffer but little, while the natives, being poorly housed and exposed to all sorts of weather, are sick half of the time. We saw many of them lying around under the verandah, apparently half dead with ague. Everything here comes down from the interior on mule-back, and it takes six days for a train to make the ninety miles from Colima to Manzanillo. Some