The capital of the State is the city of Guanajuato, or Santa Fé de Guanajuato, situated in 21° 0´ 15´´ north latitude and 103° 15´ west longitude from Paris, about 6,869 feet above the level of the sea, according to the measurement of Burkhart, and containing between 35,000 and 40,000 inhabitants. The town is perhaps the most curiously picturesque and remarkable in the republic. "Entering a rocky Cañada," says a recent traveller, "the bottom of which barely affords room for a road, you pass between high adobe walls, above which, up the steep, rise tier above tier of blank, windowless, sun-dried houses, looking as if they had grown out of the earth. You would take them to be a sort of cubic crystallization of the soil. Every corner of the windings of the road is filled with buildings of mining companies—huge fortresses of stone, ramparted as if for defence. The scene varies with every moment;—now you look up to a church with purple dome and painted towers; now the blank adobe walls, with here and there a spiry cypress or graceful palm between them, rise far above you, along the steep ledges of the mountain; and again the mountain itself, with its waste of rock and cactus, is all you see. The Cañada, finally seems to close. A precipice of rock, out of a rift in which the stream flows, shuts the passage. Ascending this by a twist in the road you are in the heart of the city. Lying partly in the narrow bed of the ravine and partly on its sides and in its lateral branches, it is only by mounting to some higher eminence that one can realize its extent and position. At the further end of the city the mountains form a cul de sac. The Cañada is a blind passage which can only be left by the road you came. The streets are narrow, crooked, and run up and down in all directions, and there is no room for plazas or alamedas. A little triangular space in front of the cathedral, however, aspires to the former title." Such is the aspect of a city which is the focus of a mineral region surrounded by more than one hundred mines, which are wrought by seventy-five thousand laborers.
In spite of all the natural difficulties and impediments for fine architecture, Guanajuato contains some fine edifices, especially among the private residences of the wealthy miners, such as the families of Otero, Valenciana, Rhul and Perez Galvez. The church of the Jesuits was built by the Marquis Rayas. Besides the cathedral, the town contains two chapels, three monasteries, five convents, a college, a Bethlehemite hospital, a theatre, a barrack, a mint, an university, and a gymnasium.
The Villa de Leon, is a market town west north-west from Guanajuato, in 21° 6´ 38´´ north latitude, and 103° 39´ west longitude, 6,004 feet above the sea, in the productive plain of Leon.
San Felipé is another market town, 32 leagues north of Guanajuato, on the road to San Luis Potosi, 6,906 feet above the sea. Ten leagues north-east from San Felipé is the valuable estate of Jaral, the property of the Marquis del Jaral, the wealthiest and largest land owner in Mexico. His stock of cattle, comprising horses, mules, horned-cattle, sheep and goats amounts to nearly three million head![66] Thirty thousand sheep alone, and as many goats, are annually slaughtered on this estate for the markets of Guanajuato and Mexico, where the sheep sell for from two and a half to three dollars a piece, and the goats from seventy-five cents to one dollar each!
Celaya is a city, and next in importance to Guanajuato in the State. It lies in 20° 38´ north latitude, and 102° 52´ west longitude, near the boundary of Querétaro, 6,020 feet above the sea, and contains about 15,000 inhabitants.
Salamanca is a market town in the Bajio, nine leagues west from Celaya, and is the chief place of a region possessing twenty-nine haciendas, or plantation estates, and sixty-nine valuable farms. Its population is estimated at 15,000. Irapuato, lies about six leagues north-west from Salamanca, and contains perhaps an equal number of inhabitants.
San Miguel Allende, formerly San Miguel el Grande, is the capital of the department of that name, lies directly north of Celaya, on the river de la Laja, where it cuts the division between the two departments. Dolores Hidalgo is on the same stream, north-west of the last town, and is remarkable in the annals of the country as the residence of the priest Hidalgo, under whose auspices the revolutionary movement against Spain originated.
The mineral products of this State have been and still continue very valuable. The chief silver mines are those of Guanajuato, Villalpando, Monte de San Nicolas, Santa Rosa, Santa Anna, S. Antonio de las Minas, Comanja, El Capulin, Comangilla, San Luis de la Paz, San Rafael de los Lobos, El Duranzo, San Juan de la Chica, Rincon de Zenteno, San Pedro de los Pozos, El Palmar de la Viga, San Miguel y San Felipé. All these mines and mineral districts recognize the jurisdiction of the Deputacion de Mineria de Guanajuato, although some of them lie out of the immediate boundaries of the State.
Besides the silver yielded at these places, copper and iron are produced by some of them; and at El Gigante cinnabar has been discovered disseminated among other substances. Lead is taken abundantly from the mine of La Targea; but the mining operations of the State are chiefly confined to silver.
In the southern part of the State large quantities of soda are found near Celaya, Salamanca and Valle de Santiago; and in the north, in the vicinity of San Felipé, the earth is impregnated, in many places, with nitrate of potash or nitre. Mineral waters and thermal springs exist on the southern slope of the Cerro del Cubilete, near Silao, and are used by invalids; while in the jurisdictions of Leon, near Irapuato or San Miguel Allende and Celaya, other warm and sulphur springs are found which are beneficially frequented by persons who suffer from rheumatism and cutaneous diseases.