Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/749

Rh rarely used where stone, tiles, and iron are possible applications. Consequently, and, in view of the scarcity of water, most fortunately, there are few fires in Mexico; no fire departments, and but little opportunity for insurance companies or the business of insurance agents. As a general rule, the buildings of Mexico, exclusive of the huts, in which the masses of the people live, are not over one story in height, flat-roofed, and have neither cellars nor garrets; and in buildings of more than one story the upper floor is always preferred as a dwelling, and thus in the cities commands the highest rents. There do not, moreover, seem to be any aristocratic streets or quarters in the cities of Mexico; but rich and poor distribute themselves indiscriminately, and not unfrequently live under the same roof.

The popular opinion concerning Mexico is that it is a country of marvelous and unbounded natural resources. Every geography invites attention to the admirable location of its territory, between and in close proximity to the two great oceans; to the great variety, abundance, and richness of its tropical products—sugar, coffee, tobacco, dye and ornamental woods, vanilla, indigo, cacao, cochineal, fruits, fibers, and the like; and to the number of its mines, which for more than two centuries have furnished the world with its chief supply of silver, and are still productive. The result is, that with a majority of well-informed people, and more especially with those who have read about Mexico in those charming romances of Prescott, and who, in flying visits to its capital, have found so much to interest them in the way of the picturesque, and have brought to their eyes little capacity for seeing anything else, the tendency has been to confound the possible with the actual, and to encourage the idea that Mexico is a rich prize, unappreciated by its present possessors, and only waiting for the enterprising and audacious Yankees to possess and make much of, by simply coming down and appropriating.

Now, with these current beliefs and impressions the writer has little sympathy; but, on the contrary, his study and observations lead him to the conclusion that the Mexico of to-day, through conjoined natural and artificial (or human) influences, is one of the very poorest and most wretched of all countries; and, while undoubtedly capable of very great improvement over her present condition, is not speedily or even ultimately likely, under any circumstances, to develop into a great (in the sense of highly civilized), rich, and powerful nation. And in warrant and vindication of opinions so antagonistic to popular sentiment, it is proposed to ask attention to a brief review of the condition of Mexico; first, from its geographical or natural stand-point, and secondly, from the stand-point of its historical, social, and political experience.

Considered geographically, Mexico is, in the main, an immense table-land or plateau, which seems to be a flattening out of the Rocky