[CHAPTER VII.]
SOUTHWARD AGAIN.—CROSSING A BARRANCA.—BARRANCAS IN MEXICO.—LAGOS AND ITS PECULIARITIES.—LEON, THE MANUFACTURING CITY OF MEXICO.—SILAO.—ARRIVAL AT GUANAJUATO.—A SILVER CITY.—THE VALENCIANO MINE.—AN UNHEALTHY PLACE.—BAD DRAINAGE.—A SYSTEM OF RESERVOIRS.—THE CASTILLO DEL GRENADITAS.—AN INDIAN'S ARMOR.—EXPERT THIEVES.—STEALING A GRINDSTONE.—MARKET SCENES.—HEADS OF SHEEP AND GOATS.—SCHOOLS AT GUANAJUATO.—EDUCATION IN MEXICO.—DOWN IN THE RAYAS MINE.—SIGHTS UNDERGROUND.—AN INDIAN WATER-CARRIER.—HOW A SKIN IS TAKEN WHOLE FROM A PIG.—THE REDUCTION HACIENDA.—MR. PARKMAN'S MACHINE.—QUERETARO.—THE HERCULES AND OTHER COTTON-MILLS.
Satisfied with a day at Aguas Calientes, the party took the south-bound trains and did not stop until reaching Silao, after a run of 130 miles. An hour or more after leaving Aguas Calientes, they crossed the barranca, or cañon, through which the Encarnacion River flows; the bridge by which they crossed it is built of iron, and is more than 700 feet long. It is fully 150 feet above the water, and the view as one looks downward from the centre of the bridge is apt to cause dizziness to a nervous traveller.
A DRY BARRANCA.
"Perhaps you don't know what a barranca is," wrote Frank, in his next letter to his mother. "Well, it's a deep channel which the water has worn in its steady flow for thousands of years through the earth or soft rock. The channel of Niagara River from the falls to Lewiston may be called a barranca, and so may any similar cutting made by a stream, whether large or small. Some of the Mexican barrancas are 2000 feet wide, and 1000 or 1500 feet deep; their sides are almost precipitous, and every year the waters wear a deeper way through the rock or earth.
"Did you ever walk through a field, and come suddenly upon a ditch or brook that was not visible a few yards away? Well, that's the case with some of these barrancas. You come upon one without being aware that you are near it; you may be galloping along enjoying the fresh air and the pleasure of a ride, when all at once your horse stops, and as you draw the reins you find yourself on the edge of a precipice, looking down hundreds of feet, perhaps, to the turbid stream struggling along its course. On the other side of the barranca the country is level again, and you could gallop on without trouble but for the yawning chasm that stands in your way.
"The barrancas are crossed by descending to the stream along a sloping road built with great ingenuity and at much expense; the stream is passed by an ordinary bridge, and the high ground is reached again along another sloping road. Barrancas have long been a serious obstacle to the construction of wagon-roads in Mexico, and in recent years they have taxed the ingenuity of railway engineers who sought to pass them."
The first important city on the route was Lagos, which has a population of 25,000 or thereabouts, and is devoted to manufacturing; farther on is Leon, which is four times as large, and five or six times more important, as it is the principal manufacturing city of the republic, and was founded about 1550. Formerly there was a great fair held at Leon annually for the sale of goods; it was similar to the great fairs of Europe before the invention of the railway, but has dwindled in importance as the railways have come in, and will probably be abandoned before many years.