Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain, Volume 2

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Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1814 - Mexico
 

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Page 202 - The admirable order with which different tribes of vegetables rise above one another by strata, as it were, is no where more perceptible than in ascending from the port of Vera Cruz to the table-land of Perote. We see there the physiognomy of the country, the aspect of the sky, the form of plants, the figures of animals, the manners of the inhabitants, and the kind of cultivation followed by them, assume a different appearance at every step of our progress.
Page 357 - Durango, between the parallels of 21° and 25°, where the most considerable metallic wealth of New Spain is to be found ? If the town is placed on the arid side or the crest of the Cordilleras, the new colonists can only draw from a distance the means of their subsistence and the maintenance of the great number of cattle employed in drawing off the water, and raising and amalgamating the mineral produce. Want soon awakens industry. The soil begins to be cultivated in the ravins and declivities of...
Page 277 - The sky is constantly serene and of a deep blue, and without a cloud ; and should any clouds appear for a moment at the setting of the sun, they display the most beautiful shades of violet, purple, and green.
Page 358 - The soil begins to be cultivated in the ravines and declivities of the neighbouring mountains, wherever the rock is covered with earth. Farms are established" in the neighbourhood of the mine. The high price of provision, from the competition of the purchasers, indemnifies the cultivator for the privations to which he is exposed, from the hard life of the mountains.
Page 30 - ... of the east. From the centre of this solitude, the summit of the porphyritical rock of Chapoltepec, the eye sweeps over a vast plain of carefully cultivated fields, which extend to the very feet of the colossal mountains covered with perpetual snow. The city appears as if washed by the waters of the lake...
Page 162 - ... feet in height, comparing it only with the level of the old adjoining plains, in the interior of a continent, thirty-six leagues distant from the coast, and more than forty-two leagues from every other active volcano. This remarkable phenomenon...
Page 248 - Santa Clara Mountains, on the west and south by the Santa Clara Mountains and the District of Monterey, and on the east by the Coast Range.
Page 150 - ... from the Mexican table-land to the Havannah, and especially from the want of beasts of burden. The commerce which Puebla carried on till 1710 with Peru in hats and delft ware has entirely ceased.
Page 8 - The city is as large as Seville or Cordova. The streets, I merely speak of the principal ones, are very narrow and very large ; some are half dry and half occupied by navigable canals, furnished with very well constructed wooden bridges, broad enough for ten men on horseback to pass at the same time.
Page 152 - are better clothed than any we have hitherto seen. People in easy circumstances wear cloaks above their dress. These cloaks differ from those of Africa, for they have pockets, though the cut, cloth, and fringes are the same. The environs of the city are very fertile and well cultivated. Almost all the fields may be watered, and the city is much more beautiful than all those in Spain, for it is well fortified, and built on very level ground.

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