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Guanaxuato,
18th Sept. 1824.
We arrived here, the head quarters of our future operations, on the 13 ult.
All our party being in good health. You may suppose that after a residence
of upwards of a month I should be prepared to give you some description of
the place, with an idea of our future prospects: but it would baffle a
much brighter genius than mine to give you an adequate description of it.
I can only say that in a landscape it is more romantic than I, or I
believe few Englishmen, could imagine. It is a large, irregular, ill built
town, situated in a number of deep ravines, and the mountains, close to
the back doors of the houses, are inaccessible. Many of them are two,
three, or even four hundred feet high, and so abrupt is their declivity,
that even a goat cannot stand against their sides to feed. The air and
climate is fine and salubrious. In the deep ravines the heat of the day is
great; but leave the town and ascend the hills, you have the finest and
most refreshing breezes you can desire, and the air is scented by a
profusion of the sweetest perfuming plants that can possibly be imagined.
The soil, where there is any thing like able land or plain, is rich and
luxuriant; many of the most valuable fruits and vegetables grow
spontaneously; and though the land for culture in this mountainous spot is
so contracted, it is abundantly prolific in every thing that is necessary
for the sustenance of the human species, and all remarkable cheap. Beef is
3lbs. the rial (sic) (5d English) and a side of mutton by the hand may
frequently be had for 3 rials (sic) (1s 6d English); pork of the best
description 4d per pound, and bread equally cheap, but the latter is very
inferior though made of very good flour: it is fermented by leaven, and is
invariably sour. Vegetables are scarce and dear, for want of method in the
culture: the only kind roots and vegetables that are tolerable out of the
many kinds we have in Europe, are onions and cabbages; they are very good,
but might be much improved. Pumpkins are extremely fine: we have carrots,
turnips and parsley, but not good for want of proper management; but there
are no potatoes except sweet ones, which to us Europeans are very insipid.
This mining district is like a province of itself; several of the
mines having considerable towns attached to them, with large churches
----- In the year 1810
this town with the mining district, which is always considered as attached
to it, contained a population of 80,000 inhabitants; but the many
revolutions and interruptions concomitant thereon in mining pursuits, have
reduced their number to within 20,000, and those generally of the most
wretched description; so miserably poor and disgustingly ugly in their
persons, that not one in five hundred would in England be called
tolerable.These people are ignorant,
superstitious, bigotted (sic) and treacherous; the lower orders make a
merit of thieving, and the better sorts (few excepted) cannot blush if
detected and exposed in the most knavish transactions. --- Even the
Priesthood, who hold them in the most degrading thraldom, are no better in
their morals, and but too frequently share with the culprits the fruits of
their knavery; so that I despair of ever seeing civilization and
liberality of principles make progress, while such a horde of unprincipled
bigots hold the consciences of the people at their pleasure. This country
would be a Paradise if inhabited by Englishmen; the liberal and
enlightened Spaniards see and feel their degraded state, and repine at it.
Hitherto we have been treated very civilly and politely; but it has
been hinted to us by some of the better sort, the Governor of the
Province, the Captain Commandant, &c. that it will be adviseable (sic)
for us to call ourselves Catholics and go to mass for the sake of
appearances with the priesthood, who in case of non-compliance may become
troublesome and probably impede our future operations. This at least is an
obliging hint, a mark of the interest they take in our welfare, and an
expression of their desire that we would not for a shade of difference in
a religious creed, hazard the displeasure of their priests, but as far as
we can make it agreeable conform to the religious customs of the country. ---
The remainder of the latter was not published,
being devoted to private affairs. |
