Second in importance among the old mines of Guanajuato is Los Rayas. Its history presents a new feature in the mining system of Mexico, not before mentioned, but which is important to a right understanding of the operation of the mining code. The right of discovery gives title to two hundred varas along the mine, and to two hundred varas (about 500 feet) in depth. The consequence of this limitation is, that when a very rich claim is made, there immediately springs up a contest to get below it, and to cut off the lucky discoverer from the lower part of his expected fortune, and he has no means of avoiding such a result but by driving his shaft downward until he reaches a point below his first two hundred varas, which entitles him to claim another section downward.
This principle is strikingly illustrated in the case of the famous mine of the priest Flores at Cuatorce, which he blasphemously named "the Purse of God the Father,"[77] ] where there are marks of divers attempts being made to undermine him, though without success. But the case is a different one when the bonanza is upon a high ridge, and it can be undermined by drifting in from a lower level. Then commences a lively contest to determine who can dig the fastest, and make the most rapid progress in this contest of mining and countermining.
The Marquis de los Rayas owes his title and his princely fortune of $11,000,000 to a successful contest of this character. The Santa Amita was in bonanza, yielding an ore so pregnant with gold that the crude mass often sold for its weight in silver.
DEEP MINING.
Contests of this kind are very different from those which used to take place in California some years ago, when twenty feet square was marked off upon the top of a ridge, through which the claimant had to sink his shaft to the base rock on which the gold was supposed to be deposited. When the rock was reached, it was often found difficult to keep the lines that had been marked off on the surface, particularly when the lead grew richer as it approached the border of the claim. Controversies were frequent, and frequently resulted in subterranean quarrels and fights, and, of course, ended in superterranean lawsuits. But the Mexican rival parties were seldom near enough for a fight, and the quarrel ended, as it began, in a contest to determine who could dig the fastest.
Another peculiar feature of deep mining is the construction of the main shafts. A description of the method of construction of one of these I take from Ward's Mexico,[78] ] a book that is otherwise of little value to a person seeking for information on the subject of mines at Guanajuata, so great has been the revolution there in a few years in the condition of mining affairs: "I know few sights more interesting than the operation of blasting in the shafts of Los Rayas. After each quarryman (barretero) has undermined the portion of rock allotted to him, he is drawn up to the surface; the ropes belonging to the horse-windlasses (malacates) are coiled up, so as to leave every thing clear below, and a man descends, whose business it is to fire the slow matches communicating with the mines below.
"As his chance of escaping the effects of the explosion consists in being drawn up with such rapidity as to be placed beyond the reach of the fragments of rock that are projected into the air, the lightest malacate is prepared for his use, and two horses are attached to it, selected for their swiftness and courage, and are called the horses of pegador. The man is let down slowly, carrying with him a light and a small rope, one end of which is held by one of the overseers, who is stationed at the mouth of the shaft. A breathless silence is observed until the signal is given from below by pulling the cord of communication, when the two men by whom the horses are previously held release their heads, and they dash off at full speed until they are stopped either by the noise of the first explosion, or by seeing from the quantity of cord wound round the cylinder of the malacate that the pegador is already raised to a height of sixty or seventy varas [Spanish yards], and is consequently beyond the reach of danger."
The author then goes on to enumerate the risks that attend this calling of pegador, and the consequent high wages that have to be paid to persons who undertake this perilous office, all of which accidents and adventures must be familiar to those of my readers who have paid any attention to the business of blasting rocks; and as his hairbreadth escapes have nothing in them remarkable, we may conclude this notice of Los Rayas by adding his statement that the king's fifth from this mine, from 1556 to his time, amounted to the snug sum of $17,365,000. He gives only the sum reported, and makes no calculation for the large sums out of which the king was annually cheated at all the mines. That my reader may understand how a sum so apparently incredible as five or eight times seventeen millions of dollars could be taken out of a single mine, he must recollect that Los Rayas was a most productive mine shortly after the Conquest, and that for a century or two it was comparatively of little value, until Mr. José Sardaneta undertook the undermining of the rich mine of Santa Amita in 1740, and that afterward the rich product of the lower levels of the Santa Amita are included in this immense sum.
INDIANS AND SOLDIERS.
There is too much sameness in the details of the histories of the various other important mines of this State and of those in the adjoining State of Durango to justify the lengthening out this chapter, and I will conclude it with giving the substance of a statement I heard the American gentleman make on the subject of Indian depredations in the very centre of the republic, showing the great inconvenience suffered in consequence of the state of insecurity in which the people constantly live. A party of their own Indians, a most degraded band of cowardly vagabonds, that lived not a great way from the city, concluded to personify a company of northern savages, in order more successfully to plunder the inhabitants. With shoutings, these vagabonds rushed into the houses of the people, who were so paralyzed by the very sight of Indians in a hostile attitude, that, without resistance, they suffered them to plunder whatever came within their reach which tempted their cupidity or lust. At length, becoming satiated with liquor and champagne that they had taken from a carrier, they had to retire and camp out for the night. In their retreat they were pursued by a captain and soldiers of the regular army, who, being more numerous than the Indians, exhibited a great deal of courage until they came in sight of the savages, when, all at once, it was concluded to encamp for the night, and to resume the pursuit the next day, when the Indians would be at such a distance that they would not disturb their pursuers by their whooping.