Sketches of the campaign in northern Mexico : in eighteen hundred forty-six and seven / by an officer of the First Regiment of Ohio volunteers.

THEIR DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 53
-very inferior to ours. The mustangs possess scarcely more
than half the size and strength of our northern horses, and
are entirely unsuited for farm work or military service. Many
of them exhibit marks of fine blood, but from the effect of
climate or food, neglect or close breeding, they have sadly
degenerated from their famous Andalusian ancestry. The
Mexicans are a nation of horsemen, or mulemen,-even the
beggars are mounted. I never saw one traveling a _pied.
None are so poor as not to have a riding animal; they throw
the lariat too well for that. With them, the mule and ass are
literally A" beasts of burden," and often made to carry immense loads. The ox is generally used for draught at the
plow, and may sometimes be seen clumsily attached by the
horns to a heavy, unwieldy sort of tumbrel, with low, thick
wheels of solid wood, and which, though a sufficiently picturesque object, would be considered a decidedly slow coach
by our go-ahead people. The fiact that the Mexicans have
existed so long on the boarder of "' the universal Yankee nation,9 without profiting by any of the useful inventions of our
country and age, is evidence of a sloth and degeneracy,
which, if not soon arrested, must, at no very remote period,
terminate in the ruin of their republic and race.
In contemplating the entire statcs of the people,-th eir political, religious, social, and intellectual condition —no attentive observer, even among themselves, has failed to foresee
and lament the fate of the country. It must gradually sink,
from its complication of fatal diseases, into the tomb of the
Aco!huans and the Aztecs. And not only Mexico, but the
whole of Spanish America, will probably pass from the do(2 — Xc