Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 2.djvu/321

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MEXICO IN 1827.
305

Inēs, Căldĕrōn, and Cohăhūistlă. This was sufficient to give us a very good idea of the mode in which the great sugar plantations of Mexico are conducted, as well as of their extent; but upon both these subjects, all the most essential details will be found in the Third Section of the First Book, and a reference to this will render it superfluous for me to enter here into any farther particulars.

The population of the Valley bears evident traces of a recent mixture of African blood. The colour of the skin is darker, and the lank hair, peculiar to the aborigines, is exchanged for curly, or woolly locks. The men are a fine athletic race, but wild, both in their appearance and habits; they delight in glaring colours, as well as in the noisy music of the negroes, and form, when heated with liquor, and dancing after the labours of the day, a striking contrast to the meek and submissive demeanour of the Indians on the Table-land.

Cūāūtlă Āmīlpăs, which is four leagues from Cŏcŏyōc, and thirteen from Cuĕrnăvācă, has recovered entirely from the ravages of the first years of the Civil War. The Indian suburb is exceedingly pretty, but the town itself, from the lowness of the houses, which are mostly of Tĕpĕtātĕ, and the breadth of the streets, seems very little calculated to resist the attack of a regular force. The defence made there by Morelos, with a few hundred men, against the whole Viceregal array, commanded by Căllējă in person, is hardly a greater proof of deter-