pronouncing the English vowels with all the fulness peculiar to their own magnificent language; and making a most incongruous jumble of the whole affair. Many articles of established reputation under old Spanish names, with a few others of novel construction, now astonish their possessors by their new American appellations. Not a few conventional phrases and expressions, also, may be traced far northwards; and, upon the whole, an heretical traveller from Europe or the States, encounters far more forbearance, and is thought less monstrous, at the present time, than might have been the case before the period of the war.
There is some foundation for the belief that education is advancing throughout the country; though it may be but slowly. Would that an increasing communication with other nations had the effect of loosening the hateful bonds in which Mexico has been held for ages by the priesthood: then, indeed, there would be bright ground for hope! Extreme national prejudices and obstinacy would, with other barbarisms, soon disappear, with the spread of enlightenment and knowledge.
