We passed the night at San Andrés, a poor venta, but clean, consisting of three empty rooms, a spirit-shop, and a kitchen. Our escort slept in the piazza, rolled in their sarapes. Our beds were stuck up in the empty rooms, and we got some supper upon fowl and tortillas. We were interested by the melancholy air of a poor woman, who sat aloof on the piazza, uncared for, and noticing no one. We spoke to her, and found that she was insane, wandering from village to village, and subsisting on charity. She seemed gentle and harmless, but the very picture of misery, and quite alone in the world, having lost all her family. But "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." We saw her again in the morning before we set off, and saw her get some breakfast in the kitchen. The poor people of the venta seemed kind to her. They who dwell in comfortable houses, surrounded by troops of friends, and who repine at their lot, would do well to compare it with that of such a being.
This morning we left San Andrés, and have had a pleasant ride, in spite of a hard-trotting horse, which fell to my lot. Impossible to conceive more beautiful scenery than that which we passed through to-day. Some of the hills have a singular formation, each large hill appearing composed of a variety of smaller ones, of a pyramidal shape. We rode through Taximaroa without stopping, and breakfasted at a rancho, where the whole family were exceedingly handsome. The ranchero himself was a model for a fine-looking farmer, hospitable and well-bred; knowing his place, yet without any servility. The rancherita, who was engaged in the kitchen, was so handsome, that we made every possible excuse for going to look at her.
About four o'clock we once more crossed the hills and came down upon the plains by which we left Angangueo; and passed over a river as red as blood, that looked as if hostile armies had been engaged in fierce combat by its banks, and their bodies rolled in the tide. This ensanguined hue is, however, caused, not by warlike steel, but by peaceful copper; not peaceful in its effects, by the way, at this moment, for the whole country, more or less, is in commotion on the subject of copper coin.
You must know, that some few years ago, the value of copper was suddenly reduced by law to one half, causing a great loss to all, but much distress to the poor. The intrinsic value of the copper, however, bore so little relation to the value given to it, that it was a very productive business to counterfeit it, of which many unprincipled individuals availed themselves to such an extent, that it had almost become an openly exercised branch of industry all through the republic. When Santa Anna became provisional president, he ordered that all the copper coin, whose currency was now reduced to six or eight per cent. below par, should be given in to certain deposits which he named, promising to repay it in genuine coin of real value. But this naturally caused a still greater depreciation, bringing it down as low as sixty per cent.; and still greater discontent, the people having little faith in the promise, and, in fact, the payment could not be made at the appointed time, because there were not sufficient coining machines; and as the few new cents that did circulate, were said not to contain their real value, the distress became greater than ever. The merchants refused to receive copper, and there was no silver or small change. In the mean time, in many of the large haciendas, the proprietors have given checks to the workmen, with which they have been able to buy what they required at the shops, which are attached to these haciendas.
The amount of the copper in circulation cannot be calculated, for it is almost all counterfeit. It is supposed, however, to be at least from eight to nine millions of dollars. You may easily imagine the fortunes that will be made (and as they say are being made) by those of the government party, who are buying up for sixty, what will be paid them by favour of the government at the rate of a hundred.
We rode up the hills that lead to the house of Don Carlos Heimbürger, and were again hospitably received by him and his German friends. Nothing can have a finer effect than the view from the piazza of his house in the evening, looking down upon the valley. The piazza itself has a screen of green creepers, which have the effect of a curtain of a theatre half drawn up. Behind the house rises a dark frowning hill, in the form of a pyramid. In front is the deep ravine, with the huts of the workmen, and while the moon throws her quivering beams over the landscape, the metallic fires of livid blue light up the valley. There is something wild and diabolic in the scene; and as the wind howls round the valley with a dismal sound, it seems as if one were looking on at some unholy, magical incantation; so that it is pleasant to return after a while to the comfortable rooms and cheerful fires within, which have so homely and domestic an air. We hope to spend to-morrow here, and the following day to go on to Toluca, from whence I shall continue my letter.
TOLUCA, 19th.
The next day we visited the works, which are like all others, excepting that here they do not use quicksilver to extract the silver from the lead, but do so by the process of oxidation, by the means of a reverberatory furnace. The people generally have an unhealthy appearance, as nearly all have who are engaged in these works—the air being loaded with particles of metal. After visiting the mills and the sheds where the process of oxidation is carried on, and admiring the metallic riches of these mountains, we left the hot and poisoned atmosphere, and walked up the mountains clothed with a hardy vegetation—with every noble tree and flowering shrub—and pursued our course till we came to a fine waterfall, which plunges from a great height over the gigantic rocks.
The scenery here is rude and wild. The great rocks are covered with hardy trees—the pine, the cedar, the oak, and the flowering laurel. The river, after dashing down in this noble cascade, runs brawling amongst the forest-clothed hills, till it reaches the plains, and flows on placidly. We spent an agreeable day, wandering amongst the mountains; and when we returned sat on the piazza, to watch the moon as her broad disk rose over the valley, and the fierce blue lights that made her mild fires grow pale.
All Germans are musical, and the gentlemen in this house did not belie the national reputation. After dinner, a bright fire blazing, doors and windows shutting out the cold air that whistled along the hills, they struck up in chorus some of the finest national airs, particularly the Hymn to the Rhine—so that it seemed an illusion that we were in this wild, mining district, inhabited only by the poorest Indians; and we were transported thousands of miles off, across the broad Atlantic, even to the land where