possible a very few feet having been considered to mark the line from safety to danger. A striking instance of this has been given in a former part of this Article, on the authority of Profes+ sor Brera, of Paduas and others are adduced by Sir Gilbert Blane in the work before us. He also observed that those belonging to the upper orders of society in Walcheren were always less affected with its endemic fevers than the poorer inhabitants, and that the British officers suffered less in that campaign than the private men.

Lind has observed that cutting wood, cultivating land, sailing in an open boat in the neighbourhood of marshy or foggy districts-passing the night in such situations without shelter, or traversing them at these times, are the most dangerous occupa'tious in warm and unhealthy climates. This observation will ap ply equally well to European countries. Where any extensive undertaking is to be accomplished in unhealthy districts, it should be entrusted to those who are accustomed to the climate: the fatal effects produced on new comers under such circumstances have been stated in a former part of this Article, when treating of the mal'aria generated in the ponds of Bresse, on the rice-grounds of Lombardy, and the unhealthy swamps of Zealand.

When M. Ozanam passed through Torre de tre ponti, situated in the middle of the Pomptine marshes, and in a most insalubrious district, he was astonished to see the maître de poste of that place with every appearance of the enjoyment of the most perfect health. On asking him how he contrived to preserve himself so free from disease in so pestilential a situation, he answered, Il y a plus de quarante ans que j'habite ce lieu, et je n'y ai jamais eu la fièvre: la seule précaution que je prenne, est de ne sortir de chez moi que lorsque le soleil est déjà assez élevé sur l'horizon, de rentrer à son coucher, et de faire alors allumer un peu de feu. Je me nourris bien, et je bois du vin : voilà tout mon secret.'

An opinion has been hazarded that gauze frames fitted to the windows of houses much exposed to mal'aria, will arrest its progress; and the writer of the Article to which we have more than once had occasion to refer, says, that sleeping under a mosquito net, in an infected place, will preserve a person from any noxious effects of the circumambient atmosphere; but we are not aware that either of these recommendations rests on very satisfactory grounds: this, however, seems certain, that any thing which intercepts a current of air charged with these noxious exhalations, such as a wood, a mountain, or even a wall, has served as a shelter from the mal'aria, and preserved the inhabitants under its lee from its pestiferous influence.

With regard to Rome, we are afraid that, from the nature of its soil, all attempts for thoroughly eradicating the aria cattiva will prove abortive: still it is in the power of the Romans to do much towards ameliorating this crying evil. One of the most active remote causes is to be found in the existence of the old annona laws, which, although modified by a papal decree of 1801, act yet in sufficient force to prevent the cultivation of the land in the neighbourhood, in consequence of which the greater part is left in pasture without drainage; all the pretended facilities given to commerce being still fettered, according to Mr. Rose, by the proviso,' that grain be not extracted and transported out of the state.' Were the annona laws repealed altogether, and every facility thrown in the way of the agriculturists, the measure would be productive of very considerable advantage. We have before alluded to the little attention that is paid to the salubrity of the city; and observed that the streets are absolutely disgusting from the filth suffered to accumulate in them-evils which might easily be remedied by the institution of an effective medical police.

'Were there a medical police,' says Dr. Clark, established at Rome, (and no city has more need of one,) much might be done for the mitigation of this evil. Were all stagnant waters removed from their gardens-were these aud the vineyards, &c. carefully drained to prevent the formation of more-were all decaying vegetable and animal substances removed, and their streets kept clean and dry-there would be fewer mal'aria quarters in Rome. If they are unable to drain the marshes, by a little exertion they might at least keep their invisible enemy without the gates.'

Let the government of Rome attend to this, and we are persuaded we shall hear little more of the increase of mal'aria; the portentous denunciations of those who have promulgated her downfall will sink to the ground, and, instead of being at length blotted out from her place among the nations, we shall find her rising in salubrity and political importance.

ART. VII.-1. Memoirs of the Mexican Revolution and of General Mina. By W. D. Robinson. 2 vols. 8vo.

2. History of Guatimala, in Spanish America. Translated from the Spanish of Don Domingo Juarros, by J. Baily. 1 vol. 8vo. 3. Historia de la Revolucion de Neuca España, ó verdadero Origen y Causas de ella, &c. &c. Por Don José Guerra, Doctor de la Universidad de Mexico. 2 vols. 8vo. K 4 4. Origen

4. Origen de la Espantosa Revolucion de Neuva España comenzada en Setiembre. Por Don Juan Lopez Cancelada.

5. Apuntes Historicos del Señor Villaurrautia, Vocal de las Cortes ·de España.

6. Aguila Mexicana.

WHILST we have been furnished with the works of Falkner

on Patagonia, and Dobrizhoffer on the Abipones; of Molina and Vidaurre on Chili; of Depons, Gilij, and Poterat on New Grenada, or Terra Firma; of Condamine and Azara, of Ulloa, Unanue and Sobreviella on New Granada, now called Columbia, and Peru; we have seen nothing authentic relating to Mexico, whose wealth and population exceed the whole of those provinces together, till the appearance of the writings of Humboldt, whose researches were concluded more than twenty years ago. Mexico, indeed, as well as the kingdom of Guatimala, although not more strictly guarded against the visits of foreigners than the other countries we have mentioned, and containing more objects calculated to excite both curiosity and cupidity, has yet been penetrated by few foreigners; and of those few none have made any communications to the public since the time of Gage, Dampier and Wafer; for we can scarcely consider the Voyage de Chappe d'Auteroche en California as conveying any other than the astronomical information, which was the chief object of that author's journey. The German mineralogists and miners, who have at different periods been sent by the court of Madrid to Mexico, have confined their communications so strictly within the limits of their own professional pursuits, that in none of their publications which we have examined can be traced any of the lineaments by which the face of the country, the character and condition of the inhabitants, or the nature of any other than its mineral productions, are distinguished.

During the last thirteen years, whilst Mexico, like the other Spanish settlements, has been in a state of the most destructive anarchy; whilst we have been inundated with accounts of revolutions completed as soon as commenced; with projects of constitutions abolished as soon as framed ; with narratives of battles gained in unknown places, over enemies and by generals almost equally unknown; and have been favoured with flourishing accounts of revenues, productions, and public spirit exhibited in the journals from Santa Fe, Lima, Buenos Ayres and San Jago, by which the cupidity of British capitalists has been excited to disperse their surplus money, and many of the adventurers, to whom a state of peace was intolerable, have been induced to join their cause, the single journal printed in Mexico was nearly

1

silent on all the transactions so important to those who were either the authors or the victims of these agonizing convulsions. In South America, the leaders thought to obtain that sympathy and aid from foreigners, which the rulers of the press in Mexico could only expect from Spain.

Although the state of the population of Mexico was very erroneously given by all the writers on the subject before the appearance of the works of Baron Humboldt, and the progress which it had made in civilization was but little known, yet ideas of its vast importance had been raised, and efforts had been com menced, with a view to its conquest, during the frequent wars that occurred between England and Spain. The attention of Cromwell was drawn towards it, and the minds of the public in England prepared for an attempt to occupy it, by the writings of the renegado priest Thomas Gage. The valuable island of Jamaica, which was the fruit of that project, has fortunately more than made amends for the disappointment of our attempts elsewhere. The attack of Vernon on Portobello, and the series of subsequent operations against Carthagena and other portions of the Spanish territory, originated in those extravagant notions of their immense riches, then too common, and were directed by very erroneous estimates of the relative importance of the points which were attempted to be occupied. The capture of Havanna in the year 1762 (had we retained possession of that place) would have had a most powerful effect on Mexico, because from its position towards the western end of Cuba, it commands the access to Mexico between Cape Catoche and Cape Antonio, and the egress from it between the last mentioned point and Cape Florida. As the wind is constantly favourable, a few days are sufficient to waft a force from Havanna to any part of the Mexican coast; and hence, that strongly fortified position has been justly considered by the Spaniards as the key to the extensive dominions which bound the gulph of Mexico. In the wars that have occurred since the capture of Havanna, and especially in that which arose out of the French revolution, Mexico must have attracted the occasional regards of our successive administrations, and though, at one period, an attempt to occupy that country was urged upon the ministry by the Duke of Orleans, who would gladly have become its sovereign, yet no serious steps towards it were ever taken.

Whatever wishes might, at any past periods, have been entertained on the subject of occupying Mexico, they have been now long dissipated. We believe we hazard nothing in asserting that no party, that no classes of individuals, nor a single person of any tolerably accurate information in these kingdoms, casts a look towards, or indulges a wish for the possession of any portion

of

of that American continent which was formerly under the dominion of the monarchs of Spain. It is under a different aspect that we are to view that interesting country. It is not now a country which, whilst a colony with extensive pecuniary resources, belonging to an enemy, was a fair or a practicable object of warlike attempts; but a country, in fact, independent of its original pos

sessors.

It is under this impression, then, that we have thought some short description of Mexico, with a concise but authentic narrative of the more prominent occurrences by which its present state of independence has been brought about, might not be unaccept

able to our readers.

The face of this country may be best conceived by considering the lofty ranges of the Andes, which extend themselves in various branches from one end of the peninsula of South America to the other, as concentrated at the isthmus of Darien, and passing between the two oceans at a low elevation, which is gradually increased, till they enter the kingdom of Mexico, and then expanding into a large district of table-land at an elevation varying from 6,000 to 8,500 feet above the level of the adjacent seas. Though this table-land may be considered as a vast plain, yet there rise from it groups of volcanic mountains, whose summits, from 14,000 to 17,000 feet in height, are covered with everlasting snow. This plain, as it extends towards the north, gradually expands in breadth and descends from its lofty elevation, till, at about 3,000 miles from its southern boundary, it has reached a level only a few hundred feet above the sea, but intersected by some ranges of lofty mountains which may be traced to the most distant limits of North America. The elevated plain is on both sides bounded by tracts of land, varying in breadth, which interpose themselves between the mountains and the gulph of Mexico on the eastern, and the Pacific ocean on the western side of the kingdom.

As this immense plain is elevated above the clouds during the greater part of the year, the soil becomes parched and filled with numerous deep fissures, by which the moisture of the surface is exhausted, and being nearly destitute of rivers, which, issuing mostly from the foot of the mountains, are of short course, it has a bare and arid aspect, whose resemblance to the plains of the two Castiles induced the followers of Cortes to give to it the name of New Spain. Many extensive districts are utterly destitute of water, and there are, in some parts, vast plains covered with muriate of soda and lime, nitrate of potash and other saline substances, which spread with a rapidity very difficult to be explained. In the abundance of salt and these efflorescences the

appearance