We put up our horses at a neat little inn kept by an old Englishwoman, and walked or climbed up to the Company’s house. We made several new acquaintances at the Real, though we left within a few hours, intending to see the place thoroughly on our return.
One peculiarity of the Casa Grande—the great house of the Company—was the warlike appearance of everybody in it. The clerks were posting up the ledgers with loaded revolvers on the desk before them; the manager’s room was a small arsenal, and the gentlemen rode out for exercise, morning and evening, armed to the teeth. Not that there is anything to be apprehended from robbers—indeed I should like to see any of the Mexican ladrones interfering with the Cornish miners, who would soon teach them better manners. I am inclined to think there is a positive pleasure in possessing and handling guns and pistols, whether they are likely to be of any use or not. Indeed, while travelling through the western and southern States of America, where such things are very generally carried, I was the possessor of a five-barrelled revolver, and admit that I derived an amount of mild satisfaction from carrying it about, and shooting at a mark with it, that amply compensated for the loss of two dollars I incurred by selling it to a Jew at New Orleans.
We rode on to Regla, soon finding that our guide had never been there before; so, next morning, we kept the two horses and dismissed him with ignominy. A fine road leads from the Real to Regla, for all the silver-ore from the mines is conveyed there to have the silver separated from it. My notes of our ride mention a great water-wheel: sections of porphyritic rocks, with enormous masses of alluvial soil lying upon them: steep ravines: arroyos, cut by mountain-streams, and forests of pine-trees—a thoroughly Alpine district altogether. At Regla it became evident that