Sonora is the richest mining country in the world. We assured ourself by official data that six hundred bars of silver and sixty bars of gold, worth together a million of piastres, were brought to the Mint of Hermosillo in 1839. To this large amount a nearly equal sum must be added, which is not brought to be assayed, in order to avoid the payment of the duty, which is five per cent, on silver and four per cent, on gold. This country also possesses most valuable copper mines, but the population generally abandons the other metals to seek virgin gold.
No country in the world possesses auriferous strata so rich and so extensive (criaderos or placeres de oro). The metal is found in alluvial soil in ravines after rain, and always on the surface or at a depth of a few feet. In the north of the province of Arispe, the placers of Quitoval and Sonoitac, which were found again in 1836, and to which we shall soon have to allude more specially, produced for three years two hundred ounces of gold per day,—that is to say, reducing it to our money, the large sum of two hundred and fifty thousand pounds.
The gold seekers restrict themselves to turning up the soil with a pointed stick, and only collect the nuggets that are visible; but if the streams were diverted from their course, and large washings undertaken, the profits would be far more considerable. It is not rare to find nuggets weighing several pounds; we saw at Arispe, in the hands of a miner, one that was worth nine thousand piastres, or about eighteen hundred pounds; and the Royal Cabinet at Madrid contains several magnificent specimens. We will soon describe how and why the working of these strata was interrupted.
Most of the buildings of the pueblos, or Missions of Sonora, serve as the gathering place of the nomadic workmen and traders who collect round any important mine so soon as its working is begun. The place where the workmen assemble takes the name of Real de Minas or Mineral; and if the mine promises to be productive for any length of time, the population definitively settles round it. Many important towns of Mexico had no other origin. The facility with which the miners earn large sums explains the enormous consumption of European goods which takes place in the provinces. Simple rancheros may frequently be seen spending in a few days seven or eight pounds of gold, which only cost them a week's toil. Unhappily, the ruinous passion for gambling—that shameful leprosy of Mexico, whose inhabitants it degrades—prevents the great mine owners from keeping a large capital on their hands, and thus checks works on a great scale.
Before resuming our narrative, we must also give the reader certain information about the Indian nations that inhabit the territory of Sonora. There are in this province five distinct tribes; the Yaquis, the Opatas, the Mayos, the Gilenos, and the Apaches. The Yaquis and Mayos occupy the country to the south of Guaymas, as far as the Rio del Huerto; they let themselves out to the creoles as farm labourers, masons, servants, miners, and divers. Their number is about forty thousand. The Opatas reside along the bank of the San Miguel de Horcasitos, the Arispe, the Los Ures, and the Oposina; they are very good workmen and excellent soldiers. They have always served the government faithfully, both Spanish and Mexican, and their number is estimated at thirty thousand.
The Gilenos spread along the banks of the Gila and Colorado rivers. The Axuas and Apaches, who belong to the Sierra Madre, are confounded under the name of Papazos. These Indians are nomadic, and only live by hunting and plunder; they were formerly encamped to the north of Chihuahua and Sonora; but being driven back by the progress of the Americans and Texans, they threw themselves upon the Mexican territory, where they cause immense damage, for they are well supplied with firearms, which they obtained in exchange for peltry and cattle at the American establishments at the Arkansas, the Missouri, and the Rio Bravo del Norte. In order to complete this brief enumeration of the Indian nations of Sonora, we will mention a mission established at the gates of Hermosillo, and in which five hundred Seris Indians lived; a thousand members of the same tribe, formerly one of the most powerful in this country, but now almost extinct, dwelt on the coast to the north of Guaymas, and in Tiburón or Sharkesland.
We will now temporarily leave Stronghand and José Paredes at the top of the hill, where they found a shelter from the inundation, and lead the reader to the Real de Minas of Quitoval, where certain important events are about to take place.
It was the evening: the streets and plazas of the pueblo were crowded with individuals of every description: Yaquis Indians, hunters, miners, gambusinos, monks, and adventurers, who composed the motley population of the Mineral, mounted and foot, incessantly jostled each other, and bowed, spoke, laughed, or quarrelled. Some were returning from the placer, where they had been at work all day; others were leaving their houses to enjoy the evening breeze; others, and they were the larger number, were entering the drinking shops, through whose doors could be heard the songs of the topers, and the shrill, inharmonious tinkling jarabes and vihuelas.
One of these tendajos, of a more comfortable and less dirty appearance than the rest, seemed to have the privilege of attracting a greater number of customers than all the rival establishments. After passing through a low door and descending two steps of unequal height, the visitor found himself in a species of hideous den, resembling at once a cellar and a shed, whose earthen flooring, rendered uneven by the mud constantly brought in by customers, caused persons to stumble at each step who visited the place for the first time! A hot heavy vapour, impregnated with alcoholic fumes and mephitic exhalations, escaped through the door of this den, as from the mouth of Hades, and painfully affected mouth and eyes, before the latter became accustomed to the close, obscure aspect of the place, and were enabled to pierce the thick curtain of vapour, which was constantly drawn from one side to the other by the movements of the customers. They perceived, by the dubious light of a few candils scattered here and there, a large and lofty room, whose once whitewashed walls had become black at the lower part by the constant friction of heads, backs, and shoulders, to which they served as a support.
Facing the door was a dais, raised about a foot above the ground; this dais occupied the entire width of the room, and was divided into two parts; that on the right contained a table forming a bar, behind which stood a tall, active fellow, with false look and ill-tempered face, the master of the tendajo. Above the head of this respectable personage, who answered to the harmonious name of Cospeto, a niche had been made in the wall, in which was a statue of the Virgin, holding the Holy Infant in her arms; in front of the statue a dozen small wax tapers, fixed on a row of iron points, were burning. The left hand portion of the dais was occupied by the musicians, or performers on jarabes and vihuelas.