NOTE XXXVI. p. 226.

The appearance of those bridges, which bend with their own weight, wave with the wind, and are confiderably agitated by the motion of every person who paffes along them, is very frightful at firft. But the Spaniards have found them to be the eafieft mode of paffing the torrents in Peru, over which it would be difficult to throw more folid ftructures either of stone or timber. They form those hanging bridges fo ftrong and broad, that loaded mules pafs along them. All the trade of Cuzco is carried on by means of fuch a bridge over the river Apurimac. Ulloa, tom. i. 358. A more fimple contrivance was employed in paffing fmaller ftreams: a bafket, in which the traveller was placed, being suspended from a strong rope ftretched across the ftream, it was pufhed or drawn from one fide to the other.

NOTE XXXVII. p. 239.

4

Ibid..

My information with respect to thofe events is taken from Noticia breve de la expedicion militar de Sonora y Cinaloa, fu exito feliz, y vantojofo estado, en que por confecuentia de ello, fe han puefto ambas provincias, published at Mexico, June 17th 1771, in order to fatisfy the curiofity of the merchants, who had furnifhed the viceroy with money for defraying

The copies of Madrid; but I

the expence of the armament. this Noticia are very rare in have obtained one, which has enabled me to communicate thefe curious facts to the Publick. According to this account, there was found in the mine Yecorato in Cinaloa, a grain of gold. of twenty-two carats, which weighed fixteen marks four ounces four ochavas; this was fent to Spain as a prefent fit for the king, and is now depofited in the royal cabinet at Madrid.

NOTE XXXVIII. p. 239.

The uncertainty of geographers with refpect to this point is remarkable, for Cortes feems to have furveyed its coafts with great accuracy. The archbishop of Toledo has publifhed, from the original, in the poffeffion of the Marquis del Valle, the defcendant of Cortes, a map drawn in 1541, by the pilot Dor mingo Caftillo, in which California is laid down as a peninfula, ftretching out nearly in the fame direction which is now given to it in the beft maps, and the point where Rio Colorado enters the gulf is marked with precifion. Hift, de Nueva Efpagna, 327.

NOTE XXXIX. p. 243.

I am indebted for this fact to M. L'Abbé Raynal, tom. iii. 103. and upon confulting

an intelligent perfon, who having been long fettled on the Mosquito fhore, has been engaged in the logwood trade, I find that ingenious author has been well informed. The logwood, cut near the town of St. Francis of Campeachy, is of much better quality than that on the other fide of Yucatan, and the English trade in the Bay of Honduras is almoft at an end.

NOTE XL. p. 263.

Tor

P. Torribio de Benevente, or Motolinea, has enumerated ten caufes of the rapid depopulation of Mexico, to which he gives the name of the Ten Plagues. Many of these are not peculiar to that province. I. The introduction of the fmall-pox. This disease was firft brought into New Spain in the year 1520 by a negro flave who attented Narvaez. ribio affirms, that one half of the people in the provinces, vifited with this distemper, died. To this mortality, occafioned by the fmall-pox, Torquemada adds the deftructive effects of two contagious diftempers which raged in the years 1545 and 1576. In the former 800,000; in the latter, above two millions perifhed, according to an exact account taken by order of the viceroys. Mon. Ind. i. 642. The small-pox was not introduced into Peru for feveral years after the invafion of the Spaniards, but prov

ed very fatal to the natives.

Garcia Origen.

p. 88. 2. The numbers who were killed, or died of famine in their war with the Spaniards, particularly during the fiege of Mexico. 3. The great famine that followed after he reduction of Mexico, as all people engaged, either on one fide or other, had neglected the cultivation of their lands. Something fimilar to this happened in all the other countries conquered by the Spaniards. 4. The grievous tafks imposed by the Spaniards upon the people belonging to their Repartimientos. 5. The oppreffive burden of taxes which they were unable to pay, and from which they could hope for no exemption. 6. The numbers employed in collecting the gold, carried down by the torrents from the mountains, who were forced from their own habitations, without any provifion made for their fubfiftence, and fubjected to all the rigour of cold in thofe elevated regions. 7. The immenfe labour of rebuilding Mexico, which Cortes urged on with fuch precipitate ardour, as deftroyed an incredible number of people. 8. The number of people condemned to fervitude, under various pretexts, and employed in working the filver mines. These marked by each proprietor with a hot iron like his cattle, were driven in herds to the mountains. The nature of the labour to which they were fubjected there, the noxious vapours of the mines, the coldness of the climate,

and fearcity of food, were fo fatal, that Torribio affirms, the country round feveral of those mines, particularly near Guaxago, was covered with dead bodies, the air corrupted with their stench, and fo many vultures, and other voracious birds, hovered about for their prey, that the fun was darkened with their flight. 10. The Spaniards, in the different expeditions which they undertook, and by the civil wars which they carried on, deftroyed many of the natives, whom they compelled to ferve them as Tamemes, or carriers of burdens. This laft mode of oppreffion was particularly ruinous to the Peruvians. From the number of Indians who perished in Gonzalo Pizarro's expedition into the countries to the east of the Andes, one may form fome idea of what they fuffered in fimilar services, and how fast they were wafted by them. Torribio, MS. Corita in his Breve y Summaria Relacion, illuftrates and confirms feveral of Torribio's obfervations, to which he refers. MS. penes me.

NOTE XLI. p. 263.

Even Montefquieu has adopted this idea, lib. viii. c. 18. But the paffion of that great man for fyftem, fometimes rendered him inattentive to refearch; and from his capacity to refine, he was apt, in fome instances, to overlook obvious and juft caufes,