Mexico has its museum, and it contains some curiosities which could not be supplied in any other part of the world. They are almost wholly Mexican. The weapons found among the people at the time of the conquest: rude lances, daggers, bows and arrows, with the native armour of cotton, and those wooden drums which the old Spaniards seem to have dreaded more than the arms. Among them is the Mexican “razor sword,” a staff with four projecting blades, made of volcanic glass, and brought to such sharpness that a stroke has been known to cut off a horse’s head. In the museum there are some still more curious specimens of their manufactures, paper made from the Cactus, with much of their hieroglyphic writing on it. One of these rolls exhibits the Mexican idea of the deluge, and among other details shows “the bird with a branch in its claw.” It is said that they had traditions of the leading events from the Creation to the Deluge, nearly resembling the Mosaic history; but that from the Deluge downwards all records have escaped them. But the museum contains more modern and more characteristic remains. Among the rest, the armour of Cortes.
From its size, its wearer must have been a man of small stature, and about the size of Napoleon. The armour of the brave Alvarado is also in the museum, and is even smaller than that of Cortes; but, as a covering of the form, both are complete. The wearer could have been vulnerable only at the joints; the horse of the man-at-arms was similarly protected, being in fact covered all over either with steel or bull’s hide. The use of cannon finally put an end to the wearing of armour, which was found to be useless against weight of metal. It is now partially reviving in the cuirass, and unquestionably ought to be revived among the infantry so far as covering the front of the soldiers. The idea is childish that this would degrade the intrepidity of the troops. The armour of knighthood did not degrade its intrepidity; the cuirasses of our dragoons have not degraded their intrepidity; nor will any man be the less daring from the sense that he is less exposed to the casualties of the field.
A colossal bronze statue of Charles IV. stands in the court-yard of the museum, but its history is of higher value than its subject; that history being, that it was designed by one native Mexican, and cast by another. Thus at least showing that the cultivation of the fine arts is not impossible, even in Spanish America.
There also is the great sacrificial stone on which human victims bled, a circular mass four feet high and eight in diameter, with figures in relief elaborately carved on the top and sides. On this stone sixty-two of the companions of Cortes were put to death before the eyes of their countrymen.
The finance of Mexico becomes a matter of European importance, in a period which should be called the “Age of Loans.” The debt in 1844 was about one hundred millions of dollars, of which sixty millions are due to foreigners. But the territory is evidently the richest in silver that the world has yet seen, and possibly exceeding in mineral wealth all the world beside, if we except the gold sands of the Ural, which have lately teemed with such marvellous produce. Humboldt reckoned no less than three thousand silver mines in Mexico in the year 1804. But not one fiftieth of those mines continue to be worked, a result caused by the distance of quicksilver in the mines of Old Spain. The mines produce but little gold, and that little is generally found in combination with silver. But the quantity of silver is absolutely astonishing. The mines still continue to give a produce as large as in any year of the last two centuries, in which Humboldt computes the average produce at twelve millions of dollars annually. But allowing for the quantity notoriously smuggled out of the country, besides the eighteen millions and a half of gold and silver actually registered for exportation, the produce may amount to twenty-four millions of dollars yearly. This increase evidently arises from the greater tranquillity of the country; for in the times of actual revolution, it frequently sank to three or four millions.
The American writer from whom we have taken these calculations, cannot help betraying the propensity of Yankeeism, by talking of the wonders which would be done in such a country if it were once in the possession of Jonathan. He thinks that the produce of the mines would be “at least five times as great as it is now,” that every mine would be worked, and that many more will be discovered. Calculating the exports of British produce at two hundred and sixty millions of dollars yearly, he thinks that “Mexico, if in full action, would equal that amount in ten years.” But his words are more significant still with respect to the relations of the United States. We are to remember that those words were written previously to the aggression which has just taken place against Mexico, and which the Americans pretend to be perfectly innocent and justifiable. And also, that they are written by an American minister. “Recent manifestation,” says this writer, “of a rabid, not to say rapacious spirit of acquisition of territory on the part of our countrymen, may well cause a race so inferior in all the elements of power to tremble for the tenure by which they hold this Eldorado. It is not often, with nations at least, that such temptations are resisted, or that ‘danger winks on opportunity.’ I trust, however, that our maxim ever will be, ‘noble ends by worthy means,’ and that we may remember that wealth improperly acquired never ultimately benefited an individual or a nation.”
Those are wise and just sentiments. But we unluckily see the practical morality of the Americans on the subject, in the invasion of the territory, and the slaughter of the natives.
The mineral produce is not confined to gold and silver. No country produces larger masses of that iron which so much better deserves the name of precious metal, if we are to estimate its value by its use. And tin, lead, and copper are also found in large masses.
The fertility of the soil, where it receives any tolerable cultivation, is also remarkable, and two crops may be raised in one year. But the farmers have neither capital nor inclination to cultivate the soil. Having no market, they have no use for their superfluity, and therefore they raise no superfluity. A considerable portion of the whole territory is also distributed into immense pastures of eighty or a hundred thousand cattle, and fifteen or twenty thousand mules and horses, the grass being green all the year round, and those animals being left to the course of nature. Yet, except when there is a government demand to mount the cavalry, those immense herds of horses seldom find a purchaser, nearly all agricultural work being done by oxen. Horses are sold at from eight to ten dollars a-piece. But the Mexicans exhibit the old Spanish preference for mules and a pair of handsome carriage mules will cost one thousand dollars.
Thus, in all the precious products of the earth, Mexico may stand rivalry with the most favoured nations. It is the land of the cochineal; it produces all the rice which is required for the food of the people; the silk-worm might there be multiplied to any extent; cotton can be raised in almost every province to a boundless amount. The high grounds are covered with fine timber, and, where nothing else is produced, bee’s-wax abounds; this is consumed chiefly in the churches, where a part of their religion consists in keeping candles perpetually burning. Yet the Mexican bee-masters are as careless as the rest of their countrymen, and they do not produce wax enough for this holy ignition, and great quantities are imported accordingly.