The chief productions and the indigenous plants are similar to those found in the State of Vera Cruz; and considerable trade is carried on with the interior—especially with the States of San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas, and Queretaro,—in mules, oxen, horses, honey and wax. The coasting and foreign commerce is conducted principally in the ports of Tampico de Tamaulipas and Matamoros. From these places, large quantities of European and North American manufactures, enter the middle and northern States of the republic. Queretaro, San Luis, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, Zacatecas, Jalisco, Durango, Chihuahua and Sonora are all benefitted by this trade in a greater or less degree; and the Panuco, Rio Grande and other streams are all availed of partially for this interior trade as far as they are navigable. At Soto la Marina an important smuggling business was long and vigorously carried on.
The capital of this State is Victoria, formerly Santander, a town of 12,000 inhabitants. Tampico de Tamaulipas, on the northern bank of the Panuco, which enters the Mexican Gulf five miles below the town, is the principal commercial port of the State. Its bar is dangerous and its harbor considered unsafe. Large vessels cannot approach the town, which is situated among extensive marshes. It is visited almost every year by the yellow fever; yet its foreign commerce is extensive and appears to be increasing.
Soto la Marina is a small village and haven at the mouth of the river Santander, on its left bank. It, is composed chiefly of Indian huts, and contains about 3,000 inhabitants.
Matamoros lies on the right bank of the Rio Grande or Rio Bravo del Norte, at the distance of ten leagues from its mouth. It contains about 10,000 inhabitants, who have become well acquainted with the people of the United States during the recent war. The climate of Matamoros is hot and sickly, like that of Tampico or Vera Cruz; but as the river upon which it lies is perhaps the most important in Mexico, and has proved navigable by steamers for a considerable distance in the interior, it is probable that this place will become the depot of a large and valuable commerce destined for the supply of the northern States of the Mexican confederacy. By the treaty of 1848, the Rio Grande became the boundary between large portions of the two republics; and as the intervening country between the Nueces and the Rio Grande is not considered at present attractive for agricultural purposes, it is likely that it will long continue unoccupied and unsettled, thus leaving the whole of our commerce to be conveyed to Matamoros, or to our own neighboring settlements on the opposite shore, for distribution throughout the valley of the Rio Grande.
