Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/296

288 was often told that some of these insensate creatures have been known to play the bear for at least seven years, and after all did not succeed in capturing the fair ones who had caused them to appear so ridiculous in the eyes of men.

We have inspected the Mexicans in detail, let us now look at them as a whole, and possibly homogeneous race. Says an English author: "To give a brief characterization of the people of any country is always difficult. Especially is this a difficult task when the Mexican population has to be described. The race is heterogeneous, and what may be true of one part of the country may be utterly untrue regarding that of another section. . . . . One traveller represents the Mexicans as a fine race, possessing all the virtues of the rest of mankind, and some peculiarly their own. Others will assure the reader, on their word of honor, that they have searched the vocabularies of the language in which they write, without being able to pick out a series of adjectives strong enough to express the utter turpitude of these degenerate descendants of a degenerate race."

That this is strictly true, let me show by inserting some extracts,—first, from the book of the English traveller, Ruxton: "The Mexicans, as a people, rank decidedly low in the scale of humanity. They are deficient in moral as well as physical organization; they are treacherous, cunning, indolent and without energy, and cowardly by nature. Inherent, instinctive cowardice is rarely met with in any race of men, yet I affirm that in this instance it certainly exists, and is most conspicuous; they possess at the same time that amount of brutish indifference to death which can be turned to good account in soldiers, and I believe that, if properly led, the Mexican should on this account behave tolerably well in the field, but no more than tolerably."

A German traveller, Geiger, has a mild fling at the Mexican, as follows: "The Mexicans prefer the French to all other