Page:Pictures of life in Mexico Vol 2.djvu/240

216 in the republic. Another immense disadvantage is, that all the manufacturer's machinery is transported by land at an enormous cost; and when any portion of it gets out of order, the difficulty and delay of repairing it, and the consequent loss, are incalculable. However tempting to such an investment may be the high prices of the manufactured articles, those high prices are equally tempting to smuggling, in a country with 10,000 miles of frontier and seaboard. There is, perhaps, no other country where the receipts of the custom-house are so little to be relied upon, as to the amount of importations, and where smuggling is carried on to so great an extent; even where goods are regularly imported, innumerable frauds are practised both by and upon the custom-house officers.

The climate of nearly all Mexico is suited to the growth of cotton; and no other reason appears to exist for its very limited production than the characteristic indolence of the people. Several Americans have attempted to extend its culture in this country; but their experiments have almost invariably ended in bankruptcy. A more striking proof of the unconquerable repugnance of the Mexicans to