seemed to move and propagate by instinct. There can be nothing more certain than that these diseases and infirmities are propagated. One instance came under my observation strikingly illustrative of this fact: it was in the person of one of the camp followers, a most unwise proportion of whom pursue the Mexican camp. He was a man apparently of about forty-five years of age, with a full-sized, well-proportioned head and body, but whose legs, from his hip joints to his feet, did not exceed one foot in length, and his arms were in proportion to the length of his legs, thus giving him the height of a boy of seven years of age. This little man was of the most enduring constitution, and would toddle after our regiment in a brisk run thirty miles per day. When the regiment would halt for the night, the little fellow would dance [399] either for clacos or aguardiente, of both of which he was very fond. He told us that he had a very tall wife and eight children; that four of them took after their mother and had long legs, and four of them after himself and had short ones. Many other instances of lusus naturæ came under my observation, and I was informed that an alarming proportion of the population were afflicted with these wretched entailments.

In the Valley of the Rio Grande only did we see anything resembling improvement. Here the people are infinitely superior in condition and intelligence to those more south: here were new fields being opened, and some cotton plantations under way, with the border towns from Matamoras up to Laredo, which, during this war, have doubled, and some quadrupled their population. What a volume this single fact speaks! that upon the immediate border between the two belligerants is the only improvement in the one claiming to be "mighty and magnanimous." Can there be a stronger argument of the irrevocably lost condition of Mexico, than that the only improvement in her mighty empire is in that immediate district which has borne the burden of the contest? And why? Because that district is contiguous to a race of improvement - that, notwithstanding all the burdens and calamities of an eight-years' war, their intercourse with Texians, even in hostility, has opened their eyes to the improvement of their neighbours. If, then, this often ravaged border [400] is the only portion of all Mexico in a state of improvement, what would be not only its condition, but that of the whole country, under the benign influence of peace and good government?

What we have already said of the recruiting of a Mexican army, and the character of that army when recruited, is the least difficult part of their war establishment. This army, after a long and tedious drilling, is turned into a flaming automaton, without the thought necessary to meet a sudden emergency, and hence always subject to surprise and panic; but, machine-like as it is, it requires to be supported, and, from its size and duties, a support larger than the resources of the government. Even without foreign war, the whole immense extent of the Mexican territory has to be watched, to do which a large army