Intemperance, too, is a common vice among the Indians. The
Mexicans, on the contrary, are abstemious, and I do not remember
ever having seen a Mexican intoxicated.
Such are the people who inhabit a country embracing four or five
hundred miles of sea-coast, with several good harbors; with fine
forests in the north; the waters filled with fish, and the plains
covered with thousands of herds of cattle; blessed with a climate
than which there can be no better in the world; free from all
manner of diseases, whether epidemic or endemic; and with a soil
in which corn yields from seventy to eighty fold. In the hands of
an enterprising people, what a country this might be! we are ready
to say. Yet how long would a people remain so, in such a country?
The Americans (as those from the United States are called) and
Englishmen, who are fast filling up the principal towns, and
getting the trade into their hands, are indeed more industrious
and effective than the Mexicans; yet their children are brought up
Mexicans in most respects, and if the ``California fever''
(laziness) spares the first generation, it is likely to attack the
second.
CHAPTER XXII
Saturday, July 18th. This day sailed the Mexican hermaphrodite
brig Fazio, for San Blas and Mazatlan.
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