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The same tribe had lately made a foray upon the settlements in the fine valley of Taos. They had heard of the prosperous condition of San Ildefonso, and hence their hostile visit. Besides, both Apaches and Comanches were en paz with the settlement, and had for some years confined themselves to ravaging the provinces of Coahuila and Chihuahua.
This was the Benson-Hermosillo road, built by the Santa Fe and later sold to the Southern Pacific, which extended the line to San Blas in Coahuila, and which is now in process of extending it further to the city of Tepic. I was one of those who helped survey the original line from Benson to Nogales I think the date was 1883.
Each of these States had its own executive, legislature, and judiciary, and for all except federal purposes was as independent of the General Government and that of the other States as is Pennsylvania or Virginia under our Constitution. Texas and Coahuila united and formed one of these Mexican States.
I have now gone through with the administration, or rather mal-administration, of the General Government. It is equally demonstrable that so far as Texas is concerned, there have been equal confusion, insecurity and injustice in the administration of the State governments. Texas, as is known, forms an integral part of the State known by the name of Coahuila and Texas.
The Texans were satisfied, at that time, to belong to the Mexican Confederation, but they soon discovered that to be tied fast to Coahuila was going to become very burdensome.
In Coahuila, besides silver, there is found virgin iron in masses of considerable volume and of extraordinary value in the Sierra of Mercudo, in Guadalupe, and other points. There is copper in Putula or Rios and in Guadalupe. In these mineral districts we also encounter lead. In the hills of Gizedo, correspondent to the district of Santa Rosa, are extracted sulphur and copperas.
The region of country lying on either side of the Colorado for six hundred miles of its course above the gulf, stretching to Coahuila Valley below on the west and to the highlands where the Gila heads on the east, is one of singular characteristics. The plains and valleys are low, arid, hot, and naked, and the volcanic mountains scattered here and there are lone and desolate.
From this report it is easy to follow the route taken by Castaño and his followers, but the account is incomplete, terminating abruptly at Santo Domingo, whither Castaño had been followed by Captain Juan de Morlete, who was sent after him by the governor of what is now Coahuila, without whose permission Castaño had undertaken the journey.
Then slowly the hills are brinded until the rains come again, when verdure and bloom again peer through the tawny wreck of the last year's greenery. North of the Gulf of California the desert is known as "Coahuila Valley," the most desolate region on the continent.
The ruins and the heaps of rubbish manifest that in other times there was much activity in the labor of the mines and haciendas for separating the metals; but to-day there are only in existence some furnaces, which are the least costly, which the miners of Coahuila can use for their metals. This they effect generally in ovens, and in galemes in the open plain.
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