# Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans/Chapter 22

Layout 4
Table of contents
XXII.
A RIDE THROUGH A MINING REGION.
"MUCHO polvo," said I to the driver of the diligence that took me from the station on the Mexican Railway towards Pachuca. Mucho polvo literally translated, means "much dust."
"Si, señor," replied Jehu.
Our eight mules were in the best of spirits, and succeeded in raising such a cloud of dust as obscured the landscape for miles. I wished to remark upon the beauty of the scenery, but not recalling the proper Spanish words, and happy to find that the driver understood my comment, I said again, "Mucho polvo."
"Si, señor."
In ten minutes, there rested upon the face of nature such a pall of dust as it would take a deluge to remove again, but through it all our mules galloped gayly, flinging up fresh clouds at every leap, until it was so thick around me, that, had we been standing still, I am certain we should have been buried as in a snow-drift. As the driver could not select his route, those mules gave rein to their desire to torture us as much as possible, and if there existed in that road a rock or rut that we did not go over or into, it was only because those animals could not find it. By way of varying the monotony of things I said to the driver, in a voice husky with dust, "Moo-moo-cho pol-pol-vo."
The motion of the coach prevented me from giving, perhaps, the correct Castilian pronunciation, as one minute I was clinging to the hand-rail at his side, the next over amongst the baggage in the rear, and again down somewhere in the region of the mules; but he understood me perfectly,—he was a very intelligent Mexican,—and replied promptly, "Si, señor." ​In about an hour and twenty minutes after leaving the station the diligence suddenly pulled up at Xochihuacan. If the reason why we halted here is not evident at a glance, I may explain that we needed time to pronounce this Aztec name, not being able to get around it in our then exhausted condition. We hailed it with light hearts, but with heavy stomachs; for we had inside us an amount of disintegrated Mexican earth that would have entitled us to honorable distinction among the clay-eaters of the Orinoco. We took breakfast that morning at a thriving settlement of one house and a mule-shed, known as Tepa, where we were first introduced to the pulque of that region. As it was made on an adjacent hacienda, and was the best in the county, we essayed a drink, clasped our noses, breathed a prayer to the Virgin of the Remedios,—the patron saint of pulque-drinkers,—and gulped it down. Having thus washed the dust from our throats into our stomachs, we started on again.
Northeast of the city of Mexico is a cluster of the richest States in the republic, consisting of Guanajuato, Queretaro, and Hidalgo, the mining centre of the last being Pachuca. It lies on a plain about sixty miles from Mexico City,—a plain covered with maguey plants and environed by the same purple hills that surround the capital, over which peers the wonderful Montaña de los Organos, or Organ Mountain, of Actopan. Enclosed within a semicircle of bare brown hills, by which it is hidden till nearly approached, Pachuca fills a little valley with low walled houses of stone. It has a population of about twenty-five thousand, the great bulk of which are Indian miners. It is, with Tasco, the oldest mining district in Mexico, and it is supposed that the first Spanish settlement was founded near here. Its mines have been worked for over three hundred and fifty years, and here in this very town was discovered the process of amalgamation, in use to-day, by which all the ores dug from the mountain are made to yield up the silver they contain. Yes, more, the very hacienda is still at work, and profitably, in which, in 1557, Señor Medina made that discovery so valuable to Mexico. Señor Medina has passed away, it is presumed. ​but his memory still lives, and it deserves to be perpetuated by a monument of silver at least a hundred feet high.
less than fifty yards from each other. At first the vein worked was only a vara wide, but, as they went down, they found a cavern filled with "metallic mush," twenty-four feet wide. They were at first compelled to timber around a great deal, for ​the sake of economy, taking out merely enough to meet current expenses. What remained was "pure black sulphurets, which exhumed globules of native silver when exposed to fire." One can trace the silver lode as it crops out above the surface, and runs diagonally across the hills.
The gross product of Santa Gertrudis in the first four years sums up $4,000,000, although yet new, and more than $2,000,000 has been divided in profits. The ores of this district vary from $20 to $300 per ton, with frequent deposits up to $500; $60 per ton is considered sufficient to put a mine in bonanza.
In Pachuca and the mining districts around it—Real del Monte to the northeast. El Chico to the north, and Santa Rosa to the west—are in all 267 mines, as follows: in Pachuca, 154; Real del Monte, 76; El Chico, 24; and in Santa Rosa, 13. The prevailing metal is sulphate of silver, though in some mines native silver is found mixed with the ore. The ores are "docile," and reduced by the barrel process, smelting-pan, amalgamation, and "patio" process. There are but two States that equal Hidalgo in yield of silver. Most of the mines are operated in the old Mexican fashion, the metal being brought up in bullock-skins, by means of long ropes of maguey fibre wound about a large drum, worked by horses or mules.
The accounts of the yields of some of these mines border upon the fabulous, yet it is more likely that they have been under rather than over estimated. Under the old Spanish laws, one fifth went to the king, and under the present laws one twenty-fifth belongs to the government, and by examining the books in which these accounts are kept, one may quickly ascertain the production of any mine. In the archives of Mexico you may find the musty volumes containing these records, some of them over three hundred years old. By them it appears that one hundred million dollars has been taken from a single mine, the Rosario, in thirty years, and the books show that there has been paid $500,000 per share in dividends.
On our way through the street leading to the gorge at the head of the valley where this mine is located, we passed the ​headquarters of the Real del Monte company, which works the greatest number of mines in this district. Its building is a perfect fortress, built, like all Mexican houses of the better class, with stone walls, square, and surrounding an open court in the centre, into which all the rooms look; but flanked at every corner with towers, loop holed and slit for musketry. When I first saw this structure I did not understand the full significance of those towers, supposing that they were added for ornament; but I subsequently learned that they were made for a purpose, and that many a man has been shot from them. Bullet-holes may yet be seen in the walls, though many have been effaced by mortar and paint. It is only eight or nine years since this castle withstood the attack of a horde of bandits. As related by an eyewitness, the affair was something like this. There was a large quantity of silver stored in the vaults of the building; for all the treasure of the various mines is first collected here, and then sent, in steel wagons, well guarded, to the mint in Mexico. It was, I think, in revolutionary times, and the country was overrun with lawless men, who collected in Pachuca in great numbers. The commander of the little army maintained by this great company had two hundred picked men. Leaving a small guard in the castle, he returned to Real del Monte, two leagues distant, there formed and collected his forces, and then marched again upon Pachuca. Soon as the guard within the fort saw their comrades appear upon the hilltops, they opened fire upon the rascals outside, while the commandant charged through the narrow streets, with great slaughter.
The few windows opening on the street are defended by iron bars, and the massive doors are guarded by men armed with rifle and revolver. Above this are the extensive mills and works, called haciendas, of the company, and the apartado, an immense establishment, in which the silver is assayed and the residue of gold extracted after the silver has been run into bricks. Here everything needful is made, even to the sulphuric acid used in the operation. The sulphur comes from Sicily, though old Popocatapetl has a vast store yet in his vitals; and the ​quicksilver from Austria, though there are mines of it south of the capital.
Entering the great gate,—for all the mines and works are surrounded by high stone walls,—we procured candles of the keeper at the mouth, and plunged into the dark tunnel of an "adit" There was a track over which the cars were drawn which carry the ore out from the shafts, but they were not then running, and so we walked the whole distance of five hundred varas,—nearly a quarter of a mile. At the end of the adit, in an uncanny hole, into which we climbed with difficulty, was a large steam-engine, puffing and sizzling, and rendering the place so hot that the remark was made that the engineer, if he went below when he died, would need an overcoat. These hills are honeycombed with shafts and adits; some of them, connecting with those of other mines, lead under the mountains a league. We passed over two shafts, each fifteen hundred feet deep, from which the miners were pouring, like flies out of the bunghole of a sugar cask. Probably over twelve hundred men are employed in this mine alone. They get, as wages, from six to ten reales per day, and one bag of ore out of every eight they break. The ore is sent up in small coarse bags, each one with the miner's mark on it, and dumped into small iron cars when it reaches the adit, and drawn out by mules.
When we had emerged into open air, the manager took me to the office and gave me some very rich specimens of ore, some containing native silver, and these, with others obtained later, made a most excellent series for cabinet and laboratory use. Most of them were obtained from the men as they came out of the mine. Each gang works twelve hours, and the work goes on night and day, without cessation, the month through. As the men come out of the mine and pass through the gate, they are searched—three times in all—for silver ore; yet they often manage to carry away a great deal in the course of a month, which they dispose of to the small haciendas in town, which "beneficiate" on their own account. Their methods of concealment are various and artful. One was to hollow the handles of their hammers, which they were permitted to carry out of the ​mines with them, and fill them full of ore; another, to pulverize the ore and roll it up in cigarette papers; another, to have it in little bags, so arranged with strings that they could change it from side to side, under their loose shirts, or sarapes, MEXICAN MINERS. when the keeper was passing his hands over them. They conceal it between their toes, in their ears, and in the last places one would think of; their scanty clothing offers no aid to hiding. In the Rosario is an old shaft four hundred feet in length, leading from the top of a hill into the mine; it was long since abandoned, and is now used as a chimney for one of the engines in the mines. For a long time great quantities of ore were missing. The paid agents of the company reported that stealing was going on, but could not tell how. At last it was discovered that an adit had been driven into the hill to the old shaft, and up this dangerous place they had climbed at night, dragging the bags of ore after them. An exploring party was sent in and found a dead man and some provisions, the man suffocated by the smoke.
"If the superintendent," says a certain writer, "should roast the parish priest in front of the oxidizing furnace, till he confessed all he knew about the thefts of his parishioners from the company, he would tell strange stories;—how Juan Fernandez ​carried off sixpennyworth of silver in each ear every day for a month; and how Pedro Alvarado (the Indian names have almost disappeared except in a few families, and Spanish names have been substituted) had a hammer with a hollow handle, like the stick that Sancho Panza delivered his famous judgment about, and carried away silver in it every day when he left work; and how Vasco Nunez stole the iron key from the gate (which it cost two dollars to replace), walking twenty miles and losing a day's work in order to sell it, and eventually getting but two-pence for it; and plenty more stories of the same kind."
This mine well illustrates the uncertainty attending all mining operations. Before the present company got control of it, two others had it, the last of which stopped within forty feet of the lode that has yielded millions. It was the making of Pachuca, the cause of its being created capital of the State, and floated the company through a long series of years, in which its other mines were being worked at a loss. Since the opening of this the mine of Guatemotzin has given up millions of dollars. The ore extracted in the district is about twelve thousand cargas, of three hundred pounds, per week, and the wages paid the laborers, miners, muleteers, teamsters, etc. amount to more than forty thousand dollars weekly. It may seem hardly credible, but nearly the whole of this large sum is spent every Saturday; by Sunday night hardly a miner has a copper remaining. He spends it in pulque, mainly, and such things as profit him nothing. When well filled with pulque he is very valiant; hardly a day passes that some one is not killed or wounded, and on Sundays grim death reaps a harvest.
In the summer of 1881, the inhabitants of Mexico were electrified by the news that an old mine, which had been neglected for one hundred years or more, had been found in bonanza. This mine was owned by the Condé de Regla, who employed two hundred slaves at work there, it is said, chained together. They were never allowed to see the light, after having entered the horrible pit, and finally, despairing of escape, they set the woodwork of the mine on fire, and all perished. The mine has not been worked since until recently, as it filled with water. ​Now, the workmen are discovering old tools, skulls, and skeletons, and what is better,—silver. There are many of these abandoned mines, from which the Spaniards were driven during the revolution of 1821, that were yielding their millions. Becoming filled with water, and the Mexicans being unable to clear them out with their inadequate and primitive machinery, they have remained unworked to the present day. The reopening of these valuable deposits of silver has been the favorite project of Mexican miners for nearly half a century; but very little has been accomplished, owing to the amount of capital necessary for the purchase of improved pumping apparatus, material for the timbering of the shafts, and hoisting machinery.
Scattered over the brown hillside above Pachuca, gleaming white, like monuments in a country graveyard, are round pillars of stone, two feet in diameter and five in height. They are the landmarks, or corner-posts, that define the locations of the mines. In locating a mine in this country, the first thing, naturally, is to find a lode; then one person may take up two claims six hundred feet long by three hundred wide, each; two persons can take up double this amount, but no greater location than the latter can be made by one company on the same lode continuously. The width of the location may be amplified according to the dip of the lode. For example, if the dip of the lode be very shallow, the width may be doubled to four hundred metres. The petition for location of a new lode, duly filed in the mining archives, guarantees the prima facie right to final possession upon fulfilling certain conditions; namely, the sinking of a shaft of ten or more metres, or running the same distance in a tunnel on that which shall be declared a metal-bearing vein, no legal objections appearing. If objection is made by owners of adjacent mines, or other persons, the matter is heard and determined by the "board," or sent to the courts.
The mining laws of Mexico have been handed down, with few amendments, from the crown laws of Spain. The system is simple, and eminently practical. "Under the operation of this national code, mining boards are established in all localities where mines exist. The board is composed of three members, ​one being elected each year by the votes of mine-owners only. The oldest member is president, another the secretary. The board possesses quasi-judicial powers for adjudicating disputed questions, although appeal to the courts may be taken in cases involving interpretations of law. One of the board, with the consent of another member, personally gives formal possession of new locations, or relocations of abandoned mines. The report of the engineer, with a map, is deposited with the board, and, if no objection is made, the formal possession is at once determined on. The fee of the engineer is $20 for every hundred metres. The fee for filing declaratory intention to locate is $4.50, and a government stamp of $1. The fee to the board in granting possession varies from $60 to $80, discretionary with the officiating member. The requirements of the Mexican mining laws simply relate to the width and breadth of the shaft, timbering, and other mediums of safety. They are no more stringent than the intelligent mining superintendent would naturally observe in managing his own property. Work is required to be performed for a continuous period of four months, at the expiration of which an additional four months without work is allowed. The land-owner still retains his right to the geographical surface, except so much as is needed by the mine proprietors for their buildings, etc. In case he so requires, the land-owner is paid a small sum for his property, by mutual agreement. Should a dispute arise, it is immediately referred to arbitration for final settlement. In the State of Hidalgo all mines, regardless of extent, are by law divided into twenty-five parts, called barras, one of which belongs to the State, unassessable. This free barra is supposed to be in lieu of taxation. At the option of the owners, a further subdivision is made, called bonos, which substantially represents the shares. In speaking of the value of ores in this country, it is customary ​to state the number of marcos (a marco is about $8.85) to the monton, three thousand pounds. In locating mining property, an alien enjoys the same rights and privileges as a native."
The stronghold of the silver king, or of the "company," is at Real del Monte, two leagues from Pachuca, and several hundred feet higher. Here the little village is mined beneath all its area, and the hills about are full of tunnels, shafts, and adits. In going there you hire a horse and a mozo (a servant), and strike up and over the hills toward the east. As you mount higher and higher, and the road winds in and out, now at the base of a precipice, now at the top of another, now topping a deep ravine, now crossing a bridge, yet always climbing, you look down upon and over a glorious sweep of hill and valley; far down below is the Pachuca plain, covered with growing crops of barley, maguey, and wheat; in town, the most conspicuous objects are the bull-ring, the cathedral, the new theatre, and the old convent of San Juan de Dios. Many a mile of hill and plain are spread out before us, alternately claiming attention, till the outermost circle of all is reached, blue, dim, misty above which, full ninety miles away, grand, majestic old Popocatapetl thrusts his pointed helmet, crowned with perpetual snow, through clouds of silvery, dazzling white. At the summit of the ridge, descending the eastern slope, is a beautiful grove of Mexican oaks, crowning an oval hill, each tree a mound of verdure. Descending the hills, you come to others, upon and among which Real del Monte is built; far beyond may be seen some curiously formed rocks of immense size, called the Peñas Cargadas, or "Loaded Rocks." It was here that the English Real del Monte Company took possession of the mines whence the Count of Regla extracted his great wealth, and, through reckless expenditure, managed to absorb $20,000,000, of capital, sent out to them from England, in twenty-five years. From this they realized but $16,000,000, "and the present proprietors enjoy the fruits of their labors at a cost of less than a million, with a fair prospect of realizing as large a treasure as that acquired by the first Count of Regla. This is one of the most extensive mines in the world, where an average of five ​thousand men and unnumbered animals are employed." The foregoing statement was written twenty-five years ago, and so far as prospective wealth is concerned might be repeated to-day, for the old mines seem yet unexhausted, and the company is still prosecuting its labors with great vigor. One can scarcely comprehend the inexhaustible nature of these veins, some of which have been worked three centuries and a half, and, after glutting all their possessors with precious metal, still beckon
on to perhaps yet greater deposits, though they have already been followed for miles. It seems as though the expression "silver hills" has more than a figurative meaning, and that the entire backbone of the republic is of silver, with ribs of that metal and of gold extending deep into the bowels of the earth.
Leaving behind us this centre of ancient enterprise, situated, according to Humboldt, nine thousand feet above the sea, we took the road leading to Regla. It was crowded with mules and ​donkeys laden with sacks of ore, going from Pachuca to the smelting establishments of Regla and San Miguel, and we had great difficulty in getting through them. There was not a bridle or rein amongst the whole lot of about sixty, yet they all kept together, guided by a peon and two men in leather jackets and breeches, who were almost covered up with arms of all kinds.
The Hacienda de Regla, which we reached about noon, is seven leagues from Pachuca, the termination of the road; it is a heterogeneous collection of buildings, crowded into a mighty gorge, which is walled across. In describing this, the strongest of those silver works erected in the last century, I scarcely know how to approach it; stupendous works of nature vie with massive buildings erected by man, either one of which would arrest the attention of a tourist in any land. But let us examine the natural formation first, even as we would learn the general outline of the world's map before man's advent upon it. Here is the Giant's Causeway of America, as the late Bishop Haven called it. "It is worth a journey of a thousand miles to see the Barranca Grande and the Regla Palisades." The name is an exaggeration, even as are most of his descriptions and narrations, yet there is here material enough to warrant a comparison, and no mean one either. Here is a basaltic formation grander, perhaps, than any the United States can boast. Here are cliffs one hundred and fifty feet high, enclosing a basin deep and wide. Immense basaltic columns, perpendicular ranges of rock pillars, rise high above our heads, and from a deep gap, at the head of the gorge, a stream of water rushes out,—an immense volume,—which takes a leap of forty feet or more, and plunges into a rocky basin. It is a most striking picture, this foaming, roaring avalanche of milk-white water, suddenly projected into view from a deep black chasm, and precipitated into this rock-ribbed ravine. In one place the great columns are crowded out, as though by the superincumbent weight of earth ​and rocks above them, or as if the giant that fashioned them had bent them outward from the perpendicular face-line of the cliffs when in a state of fusion. They present a mass of hexagonal rocks, showing well the shape of these massive columns.
The bed of the river that flows down toward the barranca is paved with these hexagonal and pentagonal blocks; an old aqueduct leads from the basin to the mills, forming a double arch as it leaps over the river-bed and enters the wall ​surrounding the works. The organ cactus grins out of the rocks, and great yucca-leaved trees with pendent bunches of snow-white flowers hang above the buildings.
What an indomitable spirit was that of the man who built these works,—Peter Terreros, the first Count of Regla. It is estimated that he expended $2,500,000 upon the buildings constituting this refining establishment, sunk in this barranca, below the level of the table land. Right here, on the scene of his labors, let us recall who and what he was. As authority, I will quote from a writer of a quarter of a century ago, who repeats what was known and confirmed by Humboldt sixty years before. "In olden times the water in the Real del Monte mines had been lifted out of the Santa Brigeda and other shafts in bull-hides carried upon a windlass. . . . . But after a certain depth had been reached, the head of water could no longer be kept down by this process, and, in consequence, the Real del Monte was abandoned, about the beginning of the last century, and became a perfect ruin. Peter Terreros, then a man of limited means, conceived the idea of draining this abandoned mine by means of a tunnel or adit (socabon) through the rock, one mile and a quarter in length, till he should strike the Santa Brigeda shaft. From 1750 to 1762, he toiled until he reached the shaft, and also a bonanza, which continued for twelve years to yield an amount of silver that in our day appears fabulous. The veins which he struck from time to time in the tunnel kept the enterprise alive. His bonanza not only furnished the means for refitting and clearing out the old shaft, but from his surplus profits he laid out half a million dollars annually in the purchase of plantations, or six million dollars in the twelve years, equal to about five hundred thousand pounds' weight of silver. Besides, he loaned the king a million dollars, which has never been repaid, and built and equipped two ships of the line and gave them to his sovereign. He was then created (this muleteer and illiterate shopkeeper) Count of Regla. When his children were baptized, the procession walked upon bars of silver. He assured the king that, if he would visit him, wherever he walked it should be upon silver bars, and that his apartments should be lined with that precious metal." ​This hacienda was established by the Condé de Regla over one hundred years ago, and the reason for having the reduction works so far from the mines is that there is an abundance of water here, and little there. It is said that he employed slaves in this hacienda, as in his mines, and kept them in caverns in the cliffs.
Directly in front of the church is the patio, court or yard, in which is carried on the operation of mixing, kneading, and amalgamating the silver ore, called the "Patio process." It is the oldest Mexican system of extracting silver from its ore, and in substance the only one tolerated. The ore is brought here from the mines, on the backs of mules and burros, and in great carts, crushed into pieces the size of a walnut, and then further crushed and triturated beneath heavy blocks of basalt, whirled about in a circular basin, called an arrastre, by water-power. The comminuted ore is then run out into the patio, where it is spread out in great mud pies, and this mud, mixed with salt, quicksilver, and copperas, is trodden and thoroughly kneaded by droves of horses being driven through it a certain number of hours daily,—a custom introduced from Peru in 1733. The establishment has over two hundred horses and mules, and when I arrived six groups of twenty-four horses each were at work on different beds in the patio. They are tied together by a long line, which a man who stands in the centre holds in his hand, and compelled to travel round and round during eight long hours. When they leave the valuable deposit they are covered with precious mud, which is washed from them in a large tank. Further mixing with chemicals, washings, and triturations, are necessary before the final process of volatilization and running into bars, each and every one requiring watchful care and skill sharpened by long experience. The process is wasteful in the extreme, about twenty per cent, it is calculated, probably remaining in the residuum. The cost of reducing ores in this manner varies from twenty to twenty-five dollars per ton; consequently, ores yielding less than thirty dollars per ton are not generally worked.
It was worth a week's journey to look upon these mighty ​palisades, and that night, when the moon came up and filled the great gap with mellow light, the view could not be recompensed by a month of ordinary scenes. Next morning I climbed the hill, above the compact castle and town, through a miserable village, with one street that led upward, and full of rocks and stones that had a tendency to send you downward. But the mozo said it was a buen camino, a good road; though a mozo always calls any road good that has holes in it less than four feet deep, and rocks you can climb over without a ladder. After a time we attained the table land again, from which we had descended into the gorge the day before. This portion is a great plain, thickly peppered with stones from some volcano, and in the distance are clumps of cedar and acacia, with here and there an oak. The air is fragrant with cedar odors, and the pastures might be those of the Massachusetts hills, but for the maguey along the walls.
And what am I going to see? A barranca. And a barranca is—a hole in the ground, a ravine lengthened out, and spread apart, and deepened, until it has ceased to be a ravine, or a gorge, or even a canon, but becomes a barranca. And this is the Barranca Grande, the largest one in the State, and perhaps in the country, miles across, and with walls twenty-five hundred feet deep, or high, according to whether you stand at top or bottom. The mozo leads the way to the brink of a precipice, and I look down into the barranca of the river from Regla. Steep walls of rock are under my feet, at the base of which is the accumulated detritus of centuries, sloping to the bottom, where a river meanders through groves of trees and green-carpeted alluvium. It must be a large river, though it looks a mere silver thread, and its roaring can be heard here, two thousand feet above it. Riding still farther on a couple of miles, over stone-strewn hills, I reached the highest prominence on the plateau, between the Regla barranca and one still grander, into which its river empties. Below me stretched the great barranca, pursuing a serpentine course from north to south, a broad vale of green, divided into fields and gardens, with dark green mango and orange trees shading a most luxuriant vegetation, and a ​river running through its centre, here dark and quiet, there foaming over shallows. Brown earth, without a stone appearing in it, indicated fresh cultivation, and little thatched huts, upon various spurs and elevations, told where the cultivators lived. A happy valley this deep-sunken barranca-bottom appears to be; but doubtless there are drawbacks to a perfect state of existence here; the river is not always so quiet, and sometimes rushes up the hillsides and tears away these homes so humble; and as to getting there, if the delight of being secluded is great, the difficulties surrounding it are greater, for the roads leading down from the outer world are long and tortuous, steep and dangerous, scarcely passable even for mules. The principal plant up here is a prickly-pear, growing up like a tree, with red flowers, and the aloe; about them hover butterflies and humming-birds.
While I wrote these notes my mozo went to sleep under a cactus, on a A MOZO. contiguous hill, and the horse dozed by his side. I like these mozos; they are honest and faithful. In the number I have employed, I have not found a faithless one. And then they are so humble; they will hardly address you without touching their hats, and are very grateful for a kindness. Poor fellows! they get little enough of it here. This one had trotted by my side for several miles, and when I gave him a piece of silver he could not understand why I should do so; it was only two reales, yet he was so profuse in his thanks that I galloped away from him to escape them. In returning over the plain he sought out for me some specimens of obsidian,—the volcanic vitreous stone from which the Aztecs used to make their spears, knives, and arrow-heads. It is very plentiful here, and in the hills between these plains and Pachuca there are indications of extensive mines by the Aztecs for the purpose of getting this valuable product, the itzli, which ​stood them in the place of iron and steel. This region of quarries is known as the Mountain of Knives,—el Cerro de las Navajas.
San Miguel is the name of the other beneficiating hacienda belonging to the Real del Monte Company; it is about two miles south of the cascade, and the most delightful in the silver region. Intending to stay there but an hour, I was induced to remain three days. Learning that I had sent my effects on to Pachuca together with my camera and gun, the administrador sent a peon for them to that point, a distance of twenty miles. When I returned to Pachuca, that same peon went with me and carried them back, making in all eighty miles on foot; yet, when I made him a present of but a dollar, he returned me a thousand thanks,—"Mil gracias, señor,"—and went away delighted.
Senor Anda, the administrador, was a graduate of the School of Mines in Mexico,—which has sent out so many finished engineers,—a commissioner to our Centennial Exhibition, where he received honorable mention, and is now the head of a hacienda requiring skill and education to manage.
In this mill they use a different process from that of Regla, called the "Saxony," of roasting the ore and washing it in revolving barrels. In crushing the "metal," they use the "Chilian process." Huge round stones, called chilenos, five feet in diameter, are made to revolve in a basin containing the metal and water. From these the water holding the silver in solution is run beneath the stamps, and then into the patio, where the rich mud gradually dries and is deposited in great beds; then it is dried over furnaces, and "roasted," after which it is mixed with mercury and "washed" in revolving barrels; the surplus mercury is squeezed out in bags, then subjected to heat and volatilized, and the silver run into bricks weighing from forty to fifty pounds. I saw one mass of silver and mercury, as it was placed in the fire to be melted and volatilized, that weighed 750 pounds, and the silver alone was worth $6,000. The whole process is conducted within closed walls, and every weight and value taken down in writing as it proceeds. For ​the reason that the substance sought is so precious, all these haciendas, mills, and mines are surrounded with high stone walls, that of San Miguel being quite twenty feet high, enclosing six or eight acres.
This was the former residence of the Counts of Regla, and their house, more than one hundred years old, is yet standing, while the gardens of San Miguel are famous throughout Hidalgo. Here the springs have their source, that swell into streams, and finally unite in the river that has worn its way through the basaltic formation of Regla. The hills circle round on three sides, but are open on the north, where the river flows out; an extensive wood fills this open amphitheatre, visible, as it nestles in the shelter of the ridge, for many miles. The most accessible portion of this basin, just outside and south of the enclosing wall of the hacienda, was once transformed into a beautiful garden, famous in the days of its glory for its lovely flowers and rare plants. The waters of the springs—called ojos de agua, or "water-eyes"—bubble up beneath shapely oaks hung with moss, and are detained by a solid wall, thrown across the hollow. Around the lake thus formed is a broad walk, with a low wall on either side, and at intervals are fashioned great curved seats of plastered stone, sometimes cut from the solid rock.
I doubt if there are as many mines now in Mexico as at the beginning of this century, when Humboldt estimated them at three thousand in number; but those in operation, owing to the introduction of improved machinery, are worked at greater profit. As the railroads are extended, and remote sections are brought into communication with the capital, they will increase in number and in value; but it will require many years to develop the treasures of gold and silver that Mexico holds concealed. Though the mines of Pachuca are among the richest, there are others in the republic yet more extensive. According to Sartorius, the Valenciana, of Guanajuato, a mine that yielded its owners an annual profit of a million dollars, has shafts and adits that cost several millions, and a lofty and broad spiral path is cut through firm rock to a depth of over five ​hundred feet, so that troops of mules can descend into the lowest portions, in its best days it yielded annually seven hundred thousand hundred-weight of ore, and upwards of three thousand persons were employed in it. Second in importance among the old mines of Guanajuato is the mine of Los Rayas, from which the king's fifth alone, during Spanish possession, was $17,365,000. From the mine of El Carmen, in the State of Sonora, was taken a lump of pure silver weighing 425 pounds, and another is on record which weighed 2,700 pounds. The mines of San Luis Potosi have enriched thousands. The story has been often told of poor Padre Flores, of that State, who bought a small claim, and, after following the vein a little ways, came to a cavern containing the ore in a state of decomposition (like that found in the Santa Gertrudis), and from this silver cave obtained over $3,000,000.
From the four silver-producing States that hold the lead—Pachuca, Guanajuato, Zacatecas, and Sonora—have been obtained the greater part of that $4,000,000,000, which, it is estimated on good authority, Mexico has yielded, up to the year 1884. The mines of Pachuca have an advantageous situation in point of contiguity to the Mexican valley, and with direct communication with Vera Cruz; and if any mines in Mexico ever fulfil the promises of their owners, these should come to the front. Experience, however, has demonstrated that more foreign capital has been poured into Mexican mines than has ever been taken out of them. England's experiment of sixty years ago cost her millions, and Americans should heed the warning.
Though it may appear from the preceding, that the primitive processes are wasteful in the extreme, and that the very rivers are carrying away as wastage thousands of pounds of silver annually, yet it is doubtful if Americans can substitute for the Mexican process any other which will more economically extract the metal from ores of so low a grade as only are found here.
One never knows when he is safe in Mexico, either in person or in pocket. Now, though I had spent a week among the hills, and had seen nothing of an alarming nature, yet the man who rode down with me from the mining region astonished me ​by relating a circumstantial account of the murder of eight men, while I was absent in the interior. These were all miners, and they considerately confined their operations to carving one another. Three were killed in a little hamlet I passed through, he said, just after I left it, and yet I did not see a single sign of disturbance while I was gone; in fact, it was a great disappointment to me, for I know that a spicy adventure is needed, just now, to relieve the monotony of these chapters.
* ↑ "The title to the soil of Mexico carries no title to the gold and silver mineral that may be contained in the land. The precious metals are not only regarded in law as treasure-trove, but they carry with them to the lucky discoverer the right to enter upon another person's land, and to appropriate so much of the land as is necessary to avail himself of the prize."—R. A. Wilson.
* ↑ It occurs to me that the term hacienda needs explanation. It puzzled me at first, for I thought the name only applied to a great farm, but it seems there are haciendas del campo, or farms, and haciendas de las minas, or mills; as in other places I have found ranchos, or small farms for cattle, and ranchos which were merely wood camps.