boasted woollens, silks, laces, cottons, hats, and earthenware, would all be considered disreputable products in more liberal countries. Agricultural economy and farming implements are still more behind the rest of the world. There is scarcely a mill for grinding corn, I believe, in all Mexico; but the same method of bruising it is resorted to, as was practised in the most remote ages of the world. Their ploughs are of exactly the same formation as those in use a thousand years ago; being made of wood in the shape of a wedge, with no metal in them, and drawn by oxen—notwithstanding the vast number of horses and mules in the country. Other necessary implements are only like wooden sticks, with bits of iron, reminding one of rusty nails, attached to their lower extremities. And in every instance, no other reason appears to be advanced by your true Mexican for his apathy and backwardness, than the old and satisfactory one, "that such things were always so, and thus they must remain, for him!"
Some of their modes and habits of trading, however, have received an amusing colouring from their introduction to the Yankees. It is
