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These men, we observed, worked mostly with shovels and earthen pans, or with their hands and a flat, shingle-like piece of wood. Guanajuato is built on the sides of a deep, broad gorge, surrounded by rolling hills, the ravine, the mouth of which commences at Marfil, being terraced on either side to make room for adobe dwellings.
A natural amphitheater encloses the ball-ground in which were gathered the wives of Americans, in snowy white, to watch a game between teams made up chiefly of "gringoes" of the mines, my one-time classmate still at short-stop, as in our schoolboy days, thanks to which no doubt Guanajuato held the baseball championship of Mexico.
The rain falls generally in pleasant showers, afternoons and nights, leaving the mornings and forenoons bright, clear, and comfortable. It is really the pleasantest season of the year on the Mexican plateau. Guanajuato. An Ex-President. Richest Silver Mine in Mexico. Reducing the Ores. Plenty of Silver. Open Sewers. A Venal Priesthood. A Big Prison. The Catholic Church. Getting Rid of a Prisoner.
The open sewers render the death rate unusually high in Guanajuato, where typhoid fever and pneumonia were particularly prevalent during our visit. Indeed, the place is notoriously unhealthy. There are many excellent oil paintings hung in the churches and chapels, representing, of course, scriptural subjects, including one of the much-abused St. Sebastian.
I overtook many donkeys loaded with crates of cactus fruit, railroad ties, and the like, and finally at three came out in sight of the famous mining city of Guanajuato.
An intelligent overseer of a mine at Guanajuato said to us in reply to a question relating to the usual process of milling in Mexico: "We get probably sixty per cent. of the silver contained in the raw ore which we handle, and that is about all we can expect."
Similar discoveries have been frequent in Italy, Spain, Algeria, and Hindostan. Dr. Haynes in New Hampshire, Mr. Holmes in Colombia, and other explorers in the basin of the Bridget and at Guanajuato in Mexico. Everywhere these implements are identical in shape and in mode of construction, and very often they are associated with the bones of animals of extinct species.
The white inhabitants of these states are more cleanly in their habits, and more industrious than the Southern people. The little state of Queretaro has little to boast but its agriculture, but to the north of it is a country of mines and pasturage. There was formerly great rivalry between the states of Guanajuato and Zacatecas on the ground of their mining successes.
However, such as it was, I drew it now and held it ready for whatever it might be called upon to attempt. A half hour of heavy climbing brought me to the summit, with a strong cool breeze and a splendid view of the spreading lights of Guanajuato in the narrow winding gully far below.
We descended 1600 feet into the mine of La Luz down a perfectly round, stone-lined shaft in a small iron bucket held by a one-inch wire cable and entirely in charge of peons who fortunately either had nothing against us or did not dare to vent it. With the coming of November I left Guanajuato behind.
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