CHAPTER XXIV - DESCRIPTION OF NEW SPAIN OR MEXICO

Summary

Previous to Humboldt's visit to New Spain, the information possessed in Europe respecting that interesting and important country was exceedingly meagre and incorrect. The ignorance of the European conquerors, the indolence of their successors, the narrow policy of the government, and the want of scientific enterprise among the Creoles and Spaniards, left it for centuries a region of dim obscurity into which the eye of research was unable to penetrate. So inaccurate were the maps, that even the latitude and longitude of the capital remained unfixed, and the inhabitants were thrown into consternation by the occurrence of a total eclipse of the sun on the 21st February 1803; the almanacs, calculating from a false indication of the meridian, having announced it as scarcely visible. The determination of the geographical position of many of the more remarkable places, that of the altitude of the volcanic summits and other eminences, together with the vast mass of intelligence contained in the Political Essay on New Spain, served to dispel in some measure the darkness; and since the period of Humboldt's visit numerous travellers have contributed so materially to our acquaintance with Mexico, that it no longer remains among the least known of those remote countries of the globe over which the power of Europe has extended.