A large proportion of the people could speak no Spanish, or only a few words.

The unglazed pottery, palm-leaf mats, ropes and bags of aloe-fibre, dressed skins, &c., were just the same wares that were made three centuries ago; and there is no improvement in their manufacture.

This people, who rose in three centuries from the condition of wandering savages to a height of civilization that has no equal in history--considering the shortness of the time in which it grew up--have remained, since the Conquest, without making one step in advance.

They hardly understand any reason for what they do, except that their ancestors did things so--they therefore must be right.

They make their unglazed pottery, and carry it five and twenty miles to market on their heads, just as they used to do when there were no beasts of burden in the country.