he regards it as more than probable, that, at the period of his visit, (1803,) it already amounted to six millions and a half.
Since that time, only one very imperfect census has been taken, (in 1806,) which, however, proved Humboldt's estimate to be correct, by giving six millions and a half as the minimum (that is, the registered amount) of the population. The civil wars by which the country has since been desolated, must have rendered any considerable increase impossible, not only by the mortality which they occasioned on the field of battle, but by depriving the agricultural population of the means of subsistence: during this contest, the most fertile districts were those that suffered most; and the traveller, who now crosses the plains of the Baxio, would hardly believe, but for the ruins which he sees around him, that they were once thickly peopled, and smiling with cultivation.
Still, the inhabitants, though driven from their ancient seats, were not exterminated; nor is there any reason to suppose that more than three hundred thousand persons altogether perished during the war. The remainder must, according to the ordinary course of things, have gone on increasing. If, therefore, in lieu of supposing the population to have doubled, from 1806 to 1826, (which it certainly has not,) I add one million and a half to the minimum of 1806, as the ratio of increase during the last twenty years, and estimate the whole population of Mexico, in
