country can be effected. Whatever may be its aggregate—ten or twelve millions—it is generally agreed that about one third of the whole number are pure Indians, the descendants of the proprietors of the soil at the time of its conquest by the Spaniards; a people yet living in a great degree by themselves, though freely mingling in the streets and public places with the other races, and speaking, it is said, about one hundred and twenty different languages or dialects. Next, one half of the whole population are of mixed blood—the mestizos—of whose origin nothing, in general, can be positively affirmed, further than that their maternal ancestors were Indian women, and their fathers descendants of the Caucasian stock. They constitute the dominant race of the Mexico of to-day—the rancheros, farmers, muleteers, servants, and soldiers—the only native foundation on which it would seem that any improved structure of humanity can be reared. Where the infusion of white blood has been large, the mestizos are often represented by men of fine ability, who take naturally to the profession of arms and the law, and distinguish themselves. But, on the other hand, no small proportion of this race—the so-called leperos—are acknowledged by the Mexicans themselves to be among the lowest and vilest specimens of humanity in existence; a class exhibiting every vice, with hardly
