PRISONERS BREAKING ORE.
"We had a long and tiresome walk through the mine, and the dim light of the lantern and candles only served to make the darkness visible until our eyes became accustomed to it. When we reached the vein we were unable to distinguish the rich ore from the worthless rock in which the mineral lay, and soon made up our minds that we were as far as possible from being experts in mining.
"It was well for us that we laid aside our own clothes and put on some garments especially intended for the underground excursion, as we were splashed from head to foot with mud when we came out, and were sorry-looking spectacles for a photograph gallery. Each of us had a candle stuck to the top of his hat by a lump of wet clay. Every little while one of us knocked off his candle, and then there was a halt until it was adjusted.
"We saw many of the peons at work, each with a candle fixed in his hat, the fashion that has prevailed here since the mines were first opened. Sometimes they were in little groups, who put their earnings into a general pool, and sometimes they were working singly on spots allotted to them by the superintendents. The guide told us that the men worked on shares, half the ore taken out being the property of the owners of the mine, and half going to the peon. The ore is placed in heaps. The shares of the miners are sold at auction or private sale, or they may be reduced and the proceeds turned over to the proper claimants after taking out the cost of the reduction. The miners generally prefer the system of direct sales, for the reason that they can more readily obtain their pay in this manner than by waiting for the reduction of the ore and extraction of the silver.
SLOPING LADDERS IN A SILVER MINE.
"The hardest part of the work seemed to be the carrying of the bags of ore up the long flights of slippery steps to the mouth of the mine. From the lower levels the water is removed by pumping, and in some places it is carried in pig-skins on the backs of naked Indians to where the pumps are at work. A pig-skin filled with water on the back of a man climbing up the sloping steps looked at a little distance like some strange animal which has not yet been assigned a place in natural history. These skins have the exact shape of the pig, and are without cut or seam, and we naturally wondered how they were obtained so nearly whole as they seemed to be. We had seen them before in the Mexican towns, as they are in common use by the water-carriers, and one day we asked an American resident how they skinned pigs in Mexico.
"'Why,' said he, 'it's easy enough when you know how. They don't give the pig anything to eat for a couple of days; then they tie him to a tree by his tail, hold an ear of corn about three feet in front of his nose, and so coax him out of his skin.'
"Another man told us that the body of the animal is beaten with a club till the bones are smashed to pieces, and the flesh reduced to a pulpy mass, which is then drawn out through the neck, along with the fragments of bone. This seems more probable than the other process; at any rate, we give it the preference."