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Updated: May 22, 2025
Except on the immediate line of the railways, one may travel thirty or forty miles in almost any part of Mexico without seeing a dwelling-house. The people live mostly in towns and cities, and are very little dispersed over the country, that is, compared with our own land. Occasional haciendas or large farmhouses, built of adobe and stone, are seen; but isolated dwellings are not common.
In Tierra Caliente we are struck by the groves of mimosas, liquid amber, palms, and other gigantic plants characteristic of tropical vegetation; and finally, in Tierra Templada, by the enormous haciendas, many of which are of such extent as to be lost to the sight in the horizon with which they blend."
"According to the tales we have heard about Lobarto's treasure, at least half a dozen families had been robbed by him along the Border. And churches, too. "Some of the haciendas he burned and destroyed the people in them. They could claim nothing, of course. And he had a lot of other plunder that nobody knew who its actual owners were, so the story goes." "Poor people!" sighed Nan.
As the season for rejoicing drew near, the rancheros of the neighboring haciendas, together with the Indians of the distant pueblos and half-wild hill tribes, chance strangers and adventurers, streamed toward Santa Fé and swarmed within her walls; some eager for trade and barter, but most of them bent upon pleasure.
Six years and more before she told this tale to the interested Nan and Rhoda, Lobarto became a scourge of the country about Honoragas. He attacked haciendas, stealing and burning, even maltreating the helpless women and children after killing their defenders.
The Calle Rivera dwindled into a dusty, white, winding road, straggling, flower-choked gardens replaced the city blocks and gave way in turn to haciendas whose flat fertile acres teemed with the luscious harvest. The pinto covered the ground at an easy lope which ate up the miles, and Thode sat his high Mexican saddle, as easy as a rocking-chair, scanning each turn of the road for landmarks.
At a later period, when Spanish power began to decline, all this became changed. Cities fell to ruin, settlements were deserted, mission establishments abandoned, and in the provinces of Northern Mexico white travellers had to be cautious in keeping to the most frequented roads, in some districts not daring even to venture beyond the walls of their haciendas or towns.
As in continental Spain, the population live mostly in villages for mutual protection, being compelled to walk long distances to work in the fields at seed time and harvest. The owners of the large haciendas, we were told, seldom live upon them.
The hacienda itself, if our information is correct, which I can hardly doubt, is now a blackened deserted ruin. At supper appeared two more guests besides ourselves, apparently traders carrying goods to sell at the villages and haciendas on the road. In such places the hacienda offers its hospitality to all travellers, and there was room in our caravanserai for yet more visitors if they had come.
There are eleven haciendas in the State of Sonora for purifying the metals which the mines and placers produce, without taking into the account many little establishments, with from two to five horse-mills, with one bad furnace for the fusion of metals. There are many abandoned mines, as the rubbish and ruins indicate, which we have noticed, in all the abandoned mineral districts.
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