DURANGO, a town of Spain, in the province of Biscay. It stands twenty miles south-east of Bilboa, on one of those numerous streams which, when united, form its river. It contains 2800 inhabitants. Manufactories of iron and steel goods are carried on here.

Durango, or New Biscay, an intendancy of Mexico in North America. According to Humboldt, it extends from long. 104. 40. to 110. 0. W. and from lat. 23. 55. to 29. 5. N.^[1. According to Major Pike, a more recent traveller in these parts, it is situated between long. 105. and 111. W. and lat. 24. and 33. N. lie gives its length from north-west to south-east at G00 miles, its greatest breadth at 400, and its population at 200,000. ] It is bounded on the west by Sonora; on the east it touches on San Luis Potosi; and towards the north and east, for upwards of 200 leagues, it borders on an uncultivated country, inhabited by warlike and independent Indians. It comprehends the northern extremity of the great table-land of Anahuac. Its length from north to south, from the celebrated mines of Guarisamey to the mountains of Carcay, is 232 leagues. Its breadth is very unequal, and near Parrel is scarcely fifty-eight leagues. Its extent of surface is greater than that of the united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; and yet its total population, according to Humboldt, was in 1803 rather less than 160,000. Of these, Major Pike thinks, three twentieths might be European whites, five twentieths Creoles, five twentieths Mestizoes and half-castes, and seven twentieths Indians. It comprises, besides the city of Durango, six towns (villas), 199 villages (pueblos), seventy-five parishes (paroquias), 152 haciencias, thirty-seven missions, and 400 cottages (ranchos).

The climate of this intendancy is stated by Major Pike to be dry, and the heat, at that period of the year which precedes the rainy season, to be very great. The rains commence in June, and continue by light showers till September. During the remainder of the year there falls neither rain nor snow to moisten the earth, and the atmosphere becomes highly electrified. The agricultural produce consists of wheat, maize, rice, oats, cotton, flax, indigo, and the fruit of the vine. To the north of Chihuahua, about thirty miles to the right of the main road, there is some pine timber. In one place, near a spring, Major Pike noticed a solitary walnut tree; and in all the small streams there are, he says, shrubby cotton trees. “With these few exceptions, the whole province is a naked, barren plain, which presents to the eye an arid unproductive soil; and, more especially in the neighbourhood of mines, even the herbage appears to be poisoned by the qualities of the land.” New Biscay trades with the southern provinces, and also with New Mexicoand Sonora, furnishing to the more populous parts of the kingdom a great number of horses, mules, beeves, sheep, and goats, in return for dry goods, European furniture, ammunition, books, and other articles, which are brought from the capital on mules. “Some individuals make large fortunes by being the carriers from Mexicoto Chihuahua, the freight being eight dollars per cent.; and they generally put 300 lb. on each mule. The merchants make their remittances twice a year, in bullion. Goods sell at Chihuahua about 200 per cent, higher than the prices in the seaport towns of the Atlantic. This was in 1807. Horses then averaged six dollars; some, however, fetched a hundred dollars; and trained mules twenty dollars. Rice sold for four dollars the hundredweight. They manufacture some few arms, blankets, stamped leather, embroidery, coarse cotton and woollen cloths, and a species of carpeting.” This traveller concludes his statistical account of [7:8:288]the province by stating, that law here is merely a shadow, the only laws that can be said to be in force being the military and the ecclesiastical; that the corruption of morals is general, this being the natural concomitant of a great degree of luxury among the rich, and of misery among the poor; and that the Roman Catholic religion is in full force, but the inferior clergy are much dissatisfied.

There are no slaves in this province, nor, according to Humboldt, a single tributary individual; and “all the inhabitants, are either white, or consider themselves as such.” Major Pike explains the state of things more specifically. Except the Apadus, who inhabit the Bolson de Mapimi, there are, he says, no uncivilized tribes in this province. “The Christian Indians are so incorporated amongst the lower grades of Mestizoes, that it is scarcely possible to draw the line of distinction, except at the ranchos of some nobleman or large landholder, where they arc in a state of vassalage. This class of people laid a conspiracy, which was so well concerted as to baffle the research of the Spaniards for a length of time, and to occasion them the loss of several hundreds of the inhabitants. The Indians used to go out from their villages in small parties; in a short time a part would return with a report that they had been attacked by the Indians. The Spaniards would, immediately send out a detachment in pursuit, when they were led into an ambuscade, and every soul cut off. They pursued this course so long that the whole province became alarmed at the rapid manner in which their enemies multiplied; but some circumstances leading to a suspicion, they made use of the superstition of these people for their ruin. Some officers disguised themselves like friars, and went round amongst the Indians, pretending to be possessed of the spirit of prophecy. They preached up to them that the day was approaching when a general deliverance from the Spanish tyranny was about to take place, and invited the Indians to join with them in promoting the work of God. The poor creatures came forward, and in their confessions stated the great hand that had already been put to the work. After they had ascertained the nature and extent of the conspiracy, and obtained a body of troops, they commenced the execution, and put to death about four hundred of them. This struck terror and dismay throughout the Indian villages, and they durst not rise to support their freedom and independence.”

Durango or Guadiana, the principal city, is the residence of the intendant and of a bishop. It is situated in the most southern part of the province, in long. 107. W. and lat. 25. N., at 170 leagues distance in a straight line from the city of Mexico and 289 leagues from the town of Santa Fe, in New Mexico The elevation of the town above the sea level is 6800 feet. There are frequent falls of snow, and the thermometer descends to 14° Fahrenheit below the freezing point. The city was founded in 1559. The population in 1803 was 12,000, but Major Pike makes it 40,000. He also states that the city is infested in a very remarkable manner by scorpions. “They come out of the walls and crevices in May, and continue for about a fortnight in such numbers that the inhabitants never walk in their houses after dark without a light, and always shift or examine the bed-clothes and beat the curtains previously to going to rest, after which the curtains are secured under the bed.”

In the midst of a very level plain, between this city, the plantations Del Ojo and Del Chorro, and the town of Nombre de Dios, which lies in the road to the famous mines of Sombrereto, there arises a singular group of rocks, of a very grotesque form, covered with scoria, called La Breña. They extend twelve leagues from north to south, and rise from east to west, and appear to be a volcanic production, consisting of basaltic amygdaloid. On the summit of one of the neighbouring mountains (the Treayle), is found a crater 300 feet in circumference and 100 feet in perpendicular depth. In the environs of Durango there is also to be found, insulated in the plain, an enormous mass of malleable iron and nickel, said to weigh upwards of 40,000 pounds avoirdupois, and corresponding in its composition to the aëroliths which fell in 1751, near Agram, in Hungary. Major Pike also informs us that there is “a mountain or hill of loadstone” about a hundred miles south of Chihuahua.