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