CHAPTER XXXI.

Visit to Pachuca and Real del Monte.—Otumba and Tulanzingo.—The grand Canal of Huehuetoca.—The Silver Mines of Pachuca.—Hakal Silver Mines.—Real del Monte Mines.—The Anglo-Mexican Mining Fever.—My Equipment to descend a Mine.—The great Steam-pump.—Descending the great Shaft.—Galleries and Veins of Ore.—Among the Miners one thousand Feet under Ground.—The Barrel Process of refining Silver.—Another refining Establishment.

An opposition line of stages upon the road that extends sixty miles from the city of Mexico to the northern extremity of the valley has brought down the fare to $3. It is a hard road to travel in the wet season, and not a very interesting one at any time. Three miles of causeway across the salt marsh brought us to the church and village of our Lady of Guadalupe Hidalgo. From this place we passed for several leagues along the barren tract that lies between the two salt-ponds of San Cristobal and Tezcuco, and soon arrived at Tulanzingo, where the great battle of the Free-masons was fought, and where eight poor fellows lost their lives in the bloody encounter. This, and the horrible battle of Otumba, which Cortéz fought a little way east of this spot, are memorable events in the history of Mexico—more memorable than they deserve to have been.

As we rode along the eastern rim of the valley, the sun was shining brightly on the western hill that inclosed it. The opening made by the canal of Huehuetoca was plain in sight. To read about this canal and to derive an idea of it from books is to get an impression that here, at least, the Spaniards did a wonderful work. But to look at it is to dissipate all such complimentary notions. The engineer who planned it may have been a skillful man, but the government that fettered his movements, like all Spanish governments of those times, consisted of a cross between fools and priests. Even those pious gamblers, the Franciscans, had a finger in the business. After absorbing, for near a hundred years, the revenue appropriated to completing the work, they abandoned it to the merchants of Mexico, who finally finished it. The pond that was to be drained by it, the Zumpango, was certainly an insignificant affair. There was nothing farther of interest until we arrived at Pachuca.

Pachuca is the oldest mining district in Mexico. In its immediate vicinity are the most interesting silver mines of the republic. These mines were the first that were worked in the country, and immediately after the Conquest they were very productive. They were worked for generations, and then abandoned; again resumed after lying idle for nearly a century, and worked for almost another hundred years; and then once more abandoned, and resumed again while I was in Mexico. They now produce that princely revenue to Escandon and Company of which I have already spoken.

THE HAKAL MINE.

The Hakal (Haxal) mine in part belonged to the number of those which the English Real del Monte Company worked on shares, with poor success, for twenty-five years. It lies about three fourths of a mile from the village of Pachuca. That company devoted their chief attention to the mines upon the top of the mountain, at an elevation of 9057 feet, and seven miles distant from this place, and these mines were comparatively neglected. The new company, immediately upon taking possession, devoted particular attention to the Hakal, which resulted in their striking a bonanza,[72] ] in the Rosario shaft, which was yielding, from a single small shaft, about $80,000 a month, if I recollect rightly.[73] ] The ore of this mine is of a peculiar quality, and its silver is best separated from the scoria by the smelting process, of which I shall treat more fully when I come to speak of the mines of Regla. The Guadalupe shaft, close by the Rosario, was doing but little when I was there, as it does not belong to the same proprietors. On the night of my arrival they had just completed the work of pumping the water out of the San Nicholas shaft, famous for the immense amount of silver taken from it in the early period of the mining history of Mexico.

Mounted on a good horse, and followed by a lackey, I rode up the zigzag carriage-road which the English company constructed a quarter of a century since in order to convey their immense steam machinery to the top of the mountain, some seven miles distant. This road is still kept in a good state of repair, and forms a romantic drive for those who keep carriages in the mountains. The sun was shining upon the cultivated hills and rolling lands far below us as we jogged along our winding way up the mountain. At every turn in the road new beauties presented themselves. But it was getting too chilly for moralizing, and both lackey and I were pleased when we reached the village upon the top of the mountain, which bears the name of Real del Monte. The house of entertainment here is kept by an English woman, who seems to be a part of the mining establishment. While in her domicile, I found no occasion to regret that I was again elevated into a cold latitude.

THE MINING MANIA.

More than thirty years have passed since that second South Sea delusion, the Anglo-Spanish American mining fever, broke out in England. It surpassed a thousand-fold the wildest of all the New York and California mining and quartz mining organizations of the last five years. Prudent financiers in London ran stark mad in calculating the dividends they must unavoidably realize upon investments in a business to be carried on in a distant country, and managed and controlled by a debating society or board of directors in London. Money was advanced with almost incredible recklessness, and agents were posted off with all secrecy to be first to secure from the owner of some abandoned mine the right to work it before the agent of some other company should arrive on the ground. No mine was to be looked at that was not named in the volumes of Humboldt, and any mine therein named was valued above all price. In the end, some $50,000,000 of English capital ran out, and was used up in Mexico. It was one of those periodical manias that regularly seize a commercial people once in ten years, and for which there is no accounting, and no remedy but to let it have its way and work out its own cure in the ruin of thousands. It is the same in our own country.[74] ]