Brought up as most of the Indians are, on small pieces of land, or in little villages among the mountains, they find that the fruitful soil produces, almost spontaneously, enough for their frugal support. A skin or two, together with a few yards of cotton or woollen cloth, suffice, every few years, for their requisite covering. The broad leaves of a plantain, or, a palm with its matted vines, afford them shelter during the day, whilst a kennel on the ground, keeps off the rains or night dews. And thus, a servile contentment with traditionary occupations or idleness, roots them to the soil where they were born, and makes them, in fact though not in name, the hereditary slaves of the estates on which their ancestors have worked for centuries. These men are, of course, not to be suddenly diverted from their tastes; and the worthy persons who have commenced the cultivation of cotton in suitable districts of the country where the Indians are numerous and unemployed, have been obliged to abandon their enterprises from the fact that their laborers speedily deserted under the plea that they were not used to such occupations, and, with less toil, had ample food and raiment in their goats and gardens at home. The reasoning of the Indians is quite natural and even wise under the peculiar circumstances of their actual life. _Money_ is no object to them, for they have no object upon which to expend it, and their isolated existence affords them no comparative scale of society in which they might advance to a higher degree of civilization by the possession of wealth. Why then should they toil to acquire that which to them has not even the value of a _counter_? Possessing without labor all that is needed for mere existence, their toil can only be beneficial to their employers. In this, they perceive by their native sagacity, that there is no recompense and no equality of interests. Whilst such are the reasons why a new agricultural population cannot be created in Mexico, the reverse is precisely the case with regard to a new manufacturing population. Factories are generally erected in the neighborhood of large towns, or in populous districts where the surplus of _females_ is continually in the greatest indigence. These people have neither pieces of land, nor gardens, nor goats, nor means of livelihood except beggary or the prison, and consequently they flock with eagerness to every factory that affords the hope of employment and support. Thus, whilst the tendency of the agriculture of Mexico is to produce servitude, that of its manufactures is to create a feeling of honest independence. These speculations seem to indicate clearly, first, that the fixed policy of Mexico is to establish a national system of manufactures; and, secondly, that the cultivation of the staple which is to supply these factories will not be largely increased; or if it be increased at all, its augmentation will not be proportionate to the number and demand of the factories.