As has been shown, but a small percentage of the Mexican people are of purely white descent. As for the characteristic type of Mexican--those of mixed white and aboriginal race--they form the principal human element of the country, and shade off indefinably into the _peon_ class. This class, drawn both from Mestizos and Indians, forms the great working population, in the fields and the mines, and without them the national industries would be non-existent. They are a picturesque, poor and generally ignorant class, although possessed of excellent natural elements and traits which must develop as time goes on. They form a strong, virile backbone to the country, but the conditions of their life are at present but little removed from serfdom, due to their general poverty as a class and to the monopolisation of the ownership of land by the upper classes. In this connection it is to be recollected that the natives of the civilised pre-Hispanic States of the Americas--as Mexico and Peru--enjoyed an excellent system of individual land-tenure, or rather, of free land-use, which gave being to a strong, independent peasantry; and this, in Peru, still obtains to a certain degree, due principally to the inaccessibility of the Andine regions. But in Mexico such a class no longer exists, and the _peon_ lives by sufferance upon the soil which was wrested from his forbears by the white man, who adopted there the singular land customs of Europe, which arrogate to the enjoyment of a few the soil which philosophy points to as belonging to the community.[27] Enormous landed estates are held in Mexico--indeed, in the State of Chihuahua the largest single estate in the world exists--and a semi-feudal _regime_ of the land and its inhabitants marks the character of this modern American civilisation. The population on the soil scarcely reaches twenty persons to the square mile--principally rural or inhabiting small towns--and there is ample room, therefore, for expansion. It must, however, be stated that excellent new land laws have been promulgated of recent years in the Republic. National lands have been set aside in vast areas, and any inhabitant of the Republic may "denounce" or acquire a piece of such land, and retain it by annual tax-payment at prices varying from two _pesos_--a peso is about two shillings--in the remote regions, to twenty or thirty _pesos_ per hectare--equal to 2-1/2 acres--in the more settled States. The Mexican peasantry is not debarred absolutely from the enjoyment of the land if he has the knowledge and means to perform the simple requirements necessary to its acquisition--which generally he has not. I have dealt in detail with the matters of land acquisition elsewhere in this work, and with the conditions of life of and the character of the _peon_ class familiarly. [Footnote 27: In certain regions there are, of course, numerous Indian squatters and landholders.]