That this efficacious means of stopping the infinite defects which retard, if they do not hinder, the natural progress of our nation, has not been attained, to my idea, lies in the fact that so far no protective laws have existed which, founded on prevision, afford guaranties and procure work for colonists. There are no laws that fix the boundaries of the immense stretches of waste-land within our country, nor a careful study of climate, geology, and production. There is not, to my knowledge, any report establishing the best methods of making all our territory productive either through sales or the renting of all lands that cannot be tilled by their original owners. Our own elements, as we have tried to demonstrate in this article, are either heterogeneous or too scarce and insufficient to accomplish the task of carrying the nation onward on the road of aggrandizement. Hence it is, according to my idea, colonization, and colonization alone, that may serve as the final remedy for our national ills.
If we had today laws such as I have had reference to, we would at this very moment see European colonists arrive continually, attracted by hopes of a splendid future which our fertile soil and our salubrious climate offer to the industrious and enterprising man. Our population would increase daily at the same pace with the United States of Brazil and Buenos Aires, where European immigration forms an element of prosperity.
It remains for our government to fix in the most decisive way the answer to this question in the interest of the future of our country.
ANTONIO GARCÍA Y CUBAS. Mexico, _May 1st, 1870_.
NOTES ON THE SUPERSTITIONS OF THE INDIANS OF YUCATAN
INFORME CONTRA IDOLORVM CVLTORES DEL OBÍSPADO DE YVCATAN.
The abuses and superstitions in which those Indians of Yucatan believe and the abuses which they cherish are mostly inherited from their forebears, and are as numerous as they are varied in kind. I am including in this report all I was able to investigate, so that they may enable the curates to disapprove them publicly, and in their sermons to reprimand the Indians on account of them.
They believe in dreams which they try to interpret to suit the occasion.
On hearing the cawing (or cackle) of a bird they call _kipxosi_, they interpret it to mean poor success to whatever enterprise they are engaged in at the time. They consider it as a bad omen or foreboding, as the Spaniards do with the female fox or the cuckoo.