employed until they gave up the ghost. The conquerors had
appropriated to themselves the best-looking of the Indian females,
while their husbands--for Indians marry very early in life--were
consigned to the mines as laborers and carriers in the bowels of the
mountain. From this promiscuous intercourse, so early introduced, has
arisen the present mixed-blood population of Mexico. The offspring of
sin, they are a nation of sinners. The pure Indians are the descendants
chiefly of the unenslaved tribes, like the Tlascalans and Tezcucans,
who carried on the subsequent wars of Cortez, and the whites are mostly
descendants of later immigrations.

In a former chapter we have seen that the evils which California
suffered in the first years of its existence afflicted Mexico down to
the time of the great inundation of 1629; and from the pen of an
eye-witness we have given a picture of the state of society at that
time. But during the five years that the water rested on the city, its
superabundant wealth disappeared; many of the nobility and gentry
withdrew to Puebla, carrying with them their treasures and their vices,
while multitudes of the poorer classes perished. So that when the
Virgin of Guadalupe, in her great mercy to an afflicted people, caused
the earth to open and swallow up the great excess of waters, they had
become a sobered and a more moral population. It is from this abating
of the waters in the year 1634 that we have to date the origin of the
present city of Mexico; for the foundations of all the buildings except
those about the Cathedral were so much softened by five years of
soaking that they could not be relied on; and a new city grew up upon
new foundations. This is the Mexico of the present day; a city more
elegant than substantial, and dependent more upon the plaster and
colored washings of its walls than solid masonry for its apparent
durability.

THE VICEROY RAVILLAGIGEDO.

It was the great Vice-king Ravillagigedo, toward the close of the last
century (1789), who gave the finishing strokes to the city, and
established its reputation as the finest city on this continent while
the vice-kingdom continued. It was then one of the best-lighted cities
to be found, while in its paving he expended the large sum of
$347,715.[51] We have seen, in our own day and in our own large cities,
the popular applause which follows the rigid enforcement of wholesome
ordinances; and it may be well supposed that in a city li