Chapter 2

Remarkably Fertile Soil.--Valuable Native Woods.--Mexican Flora.-- Coffee and Tobacco.--Mineral Products.--Silver Mines.--Sugar Lands.--Manufactories.--Cortez's Presents to Charles V.--Water Power.--Coal Measures.--Railroads.--Historic Locality.--Social Characteristics.--People divided into Castes.--Peonage.-- Radical Progress.--Education and the Priesthood.--A Threshing Machine.--Social Etiquette.--Political Organization of the Government.--Mexico the Synonym of Barbarism.--Production and Business Handicapped by an Excessive Tariff 23