Rio Verde is the capital of the Department of Rio Verde, 34 leagues east of San Luis. The town of Valles, with 3,500 inhabitants, lies on the left bank of the Rio Montezuma, in the tierra caliente, on the boundary of the State of Vera Cruz. Its neighborhood is rich in sugar plantations and in tropical productions generally.
Venado, 29 leagues north of San Luis, is the chief town of its Department; it lies on the road from the capital of the State to Catorcé, and contains about 8,000 inhabitants.
In the partido Ojocaliente lies the town of that name, 28 leagues north-west of the city of San Luis, and 10 leagues south-east of the capital of Zacatécas, 6,714 feet above the sea.
Catorcé is a mining town, likewise in the department of Venado, and is sometimes known by the sounding title of "Real de la purisima Concepcion de Alamos de los Catorcé." The name is supposed to be derived from the slaughter of fourteen Spanish soldiers who are said to have been killed in its vicinity by a tribe of savages inhabiting these wild mountain regions before the discovery of the adjacent mines.
Nothing can be more dreary, bleak and desolate than the aspect of the Cordillera of Catorcé. A few narrow mule paths, or the worn bed of a mountain torrent alone break the monotonous coloring of the mass; and the town placed at the great height of 8,788 feet above the sea, is completely hidden from below by the bold brow of the mountain.[68] There is neither a tree nor a blade of grass on the steep and sterile flanks of these rocky elevations, though seventy years ago the whole district was covered with wood which might have endured for centuries had not the improvident and wasteful spirit of the first adventurers wantonly destroyed these valuable resources. Forests were burnt to clear the ground, and the larger timber which was required for the mines when they were wrought again after the revolution, was brought from a distance of twenty-two leagues.
On reaching a high ridge above the adjacent valley, the town of Catorcé is immediately perceived at the feet of the traveller, lying in a hollow beyond which the mountain steeps again rise precipitously above a thousand feet,—the course of the Veta Madre, or great "mother vein," being distinctly traced upon it by the buildings belonging to the mines and miners. The site of the town is extremely singular, as it is intersected by deep ravines, or barrancas, upon the ledges of which many of the dwellings are erected. Some of these strange edifices, like those of Edinburg, have one story on one side, and two or three on the other; and most of them are surrounded by massive fragments of rock, amongst which the laborers shelter themselves from inclement weather.
In this region the most valuable mines of the State of San Luis Potosi have been found and wrought.
Within a few years past a profitable quicksilver mine was discovered, south of the capital, in the jurisdiction of the Hacienda de Villela. This mine, in the months of August and September, 1843, produced 1,068 pounds of the metal en caldo.
THE STATE OF NEW LEON.
This fine portion of the present Mexican Confederacy was colonized at the end of the sixteenth century by the Viceroy Monterey, and was then known by the proud title of El Nuevo Reyno de Leon, or, the New Kingdom of Leon. The modern State is bounded on the east by Tamaulipas; on the north by Coahuila; on the west by that State and Durango; on the south-west and south by Zacatécas and San Luis Potosi.