Mexico Thirty Years Ago, as Described in a Series of Private Letters, by a Youth

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1865. Excerpt: ... GUANAXUATO, ist September, 1833. My Dear Mother, After a very long interval of separation from the rest of the world, this day is to be dispatched a courier from the Englishmen here to Quaretaro, to try and forward on letters to Mexico, which it is hoped may reach the packet, and I of course seize upon the chance, remote as it is, that these letters will ever reach their destination, to write to you to acknowledge your most affectionate letter of the 14th May by Gorostiza, whom Kate so innocently calls the Governor of Mexico, with my father's of the 18th, and Jane's, Kate's, and Lizzie's, together with another delightful budget, dated February 24th, which I got with Mrs. V 's first box, for all which return my grateful acknowledgments; and when you write to George pray thank him for his of the ist February, which had been wandering about a long time before it reached me, though not the less welcome for that. We have been, and are here, in the most uncomfortable and singular state for the last six weeks that you can fancy, and never had a set of people more need for that part of the Litany which prays against war, pestilence, and famine, for although we have not been, and are not yet quite starved, we have suffered under the former two evils in a way not commonly endured. Thank God the cholera morbus has at last left us, for its ravages here, frightful enough of themselves, were rendered doubly so by the horrible way necessarily employed to get rid of the dead. In this part of the interior of Mexico wood is so scarce that coffins are never buried with the dead but in cases of wealth; but during the time the epidemic raged at its height, when out of our small population 200 were buried in one day, the dead febdies were carried by twos and threes on donke...