The blood of the Spaniards, even at home, is a mixed blood. But when we remember the various races that have overrun, resided in, ruled, and incorporated themselves with Spain, we cannot be surprised at detecting so many and diverse characteristics in Mexico. The Celti-gallic, Celt-Iberian, Carthagenian, Roman, Vandalic, Visigothic, and Moorish blood have mingled again in Mexico and Peru with the Indian, and in some cases have been dashed even with the Negro.[4] Mexicans are thus, as I have observed elsewhere, grafts rather of the wild Arab on the American Indian, than of the Spanish Don on the noble Aztec.[5] When Mexico was completely conquered and emigration began to fill up the land, the soil was divided, in large estates, among the adventurers and the Indians, by a system of _repartimientos_, were apportioned to the land holders.[6] This created an absolute vassalage, and bound the Indian, virtually and forever, to the spot where he was born. As it became wearisome to the planters to dwell in the seclusion of these vast and lonely estates, they left them and their Indians to the care of an _administrador_, and retreated to the chief cities of the provinces or to the capital. Thus all the intelligence and cultivation of Mexico became compacted in the towns, whilst the original ignorance and semi-civilization remained diffused over the country. It is, therefore, not at all surprising to find that out of a population of seven millions, four millions are Indians and only one million purely white, while more than two millions, of the rest, are zambos, mestizos and mulattos. Nor is it singular that of this whole population of seven millions, not more than six hundred thousand whites and eighty thousand of other castes, can read and write.[7] Indeed it may be said with truth,--as agriculture has received but little attention beyond the ordinary wants of life, and as the great proprietors of estates have chiefly devoted their attention to the _raising of cattle_,--that the ancient nomadic habits of the Indian and half-breed, have remained unchanged, and, consequently, that the great body of this semi-civilized people is quite as much at home on horseback with sword and lance as in the _corral_ or _hacienda_.[8]