[115] The road passed southeast through the state of Durango, where all these small stations may be found on any good map. According to Pike the owner of the vast estate near La Zarca was the Marquis de San Miguel.—Ed.
[116] Also, from the Pulque is distilled a spiritous liquor called mezcal. The maguey (Agave Americana) is besides much used for hedging. It here performs the double purpose of a cheap and substantial fence, and of being equally valuable for pulque. When no longer serviceable in these capacities, the pulpy stalk is converted, by roasting, into a pleasant item of food, while the fibrous blades, being suitably dressed, are still more useful. They are manufactured into ropes, bags, etc., which resemble those made of the common sea-grass, though the fibres are finer. There is one species (which does not produce pulque, however), whose fibres, known in that country as pita, are nearly as fine as dressed hemp, and are generally used for sewing shoes, saddlery, and similar purposes.—Gregg.
[117] See Elliott Coues, Expeditions of Zebulon M. Pike (New York, 1895), ii, p. 763, note 34. That editor identifies the scorpion as Androctomus biaculeatus, and favorably comments on Gregg's sensible explanation of Pike's story.—Ed.
[118] Travellers on these public highways not only go 'armed to the teeth,' but always carry their weapons exposed. Even my wagoners carried their guns and pistols swung upon the pommels of their saddles. At night, as we generally camped out, they were laid under our heads, or close by our sides.—Gregg.
[119] Aguascalientes is the capital of a small interior Mexican state of the same name, now on the line of the Mexican Central Railway. It was founded in 1575, and at the close of the eighteenth century was a place of considerable importance. During the negotiations for peace between the United States and Mexico (1848), a revolution broke out at this place, that was with difficulty subdued.—Ed.
[120] This was part of the centralist revolution, for which see our volume xix, p. 271, note 96 (Gregg). Santa Ana himself subdued the opposition in Zacatecas, where his soldiers were permitted to plunder widely.—Ed.
[121] Some of these table-plain highways, though of but a dry sandy and clayey soil, are as firm as a brick pavement. In some places, for miles, I have remarked that the nail-heads of my shod animals would hardly leave any visible impression.—Gregg.
CHAPTER XXII {VI}
Visit to the Mining Town of Jesus-Maria — Critical Roads — Losing Speculations — Mine of Santa Juliana — Curious mining Operations — Different Modes of working the Ore — The Crushing-mill, etc. — Barras de Plata — Value of Bullion — The Silver Trade — Return to Chihuahua — Resumption of the regular Narrative — Curious Wholesales — Money Table — Redundancy of Copper Coin — City of Chihuahua and its Peculiarities — Ecclesiastical Architecture — Hidalgo and His Monument — Public Works, and their present Declension — Fête in honor of Iturbide — Illiberality towards Americans — Shopping Mania — Anti-Masonic Auto de Fe.[toc]
Before resuming my regular narrative, I trust the reader will pardon me for introducing here a brief account of an excursion which I made in the fall of the year 1835, to the mining town of Jesus-Maria, one of the most important mineral districts in the department of Chihuahua, situated about a hundred and fifty miles west of the city, in the very heart of the great Cordilleras.[123]