ver mind," is his greeting, "although we have to sleep here we may
eat good venison," and across the horse of his _mozo_ lies the drooping
body of the deer, its eyes glazed in death, and the blood still
dripping from the bullet wound which laid it low.

And so our _hacendado_ friend, who owns the land we are upon for
leagues away, and knows it well, leads us to a cave snugly hidden in
the rocky wall, with a floor of purest quartz sand, and a limpid
rivulet flowing thereby. The saddle bags are brought in; they are full
of bread and tinned meats and native fruits, brandy and wine from his
own vineyards. We are his honoured guest, and he plies us with all this
fare, not forgetting the venison roasting outside. And filled and
comforted with good food we discourse far into the night of weird
things tinged with our friend's strange superstition and curious lore.
Outside the coyotes howl, far away on the plain, and the mournful cry
of the _tecolote_, or Mexican night owl, faintly reaches my ears, as,
wrapped in my blankets with a saddle for a pillow, I fall asleep upon
the cavern floor.

CHAPTER XIII
MINERAL WEALTH. ROMANCE AND ACTUALITY.

Forced labour in the mines--Silver and bloodshed--History of
discovery--Guanajuato--the _veta Madre_--Spanish methods--Durango--
Zacatecas--Pachuca--The _patio_ process--Quicksilver from Peru--Cornish
miners' graves--Aztec mining--Spanish advent--Old mining methods--
Romance of mining--The Cerro de Mercado--Guanajuato and Hidalgo--Real
del Monte--Religion and mining--Silver and churches--Subterranean
altars--Mining and the nobility--Spanish mining school--Modern
conditions--The mineral-bearing zone--Distribution of minerals
geographically--Silver--The _patio_ process--Gold-mining and
production--El Oro and other districts--Copper--Other minerals--General
mineral production--Mining claims and laws.

"Grant me, oh! rock-ribbed matrix, here to know
Thy minerall'd sanctuary;
To none but me the sesame disclose,
Un-oped since chaos fled!"

There is much of interest and something of pathos and romance attending
the old mines of Spanish-American countries--Mexico, Peru, and others.
They are so interwoven with the history of these countries, so redolent
of the past, and of the hope, despair, piety, greed of the old
taskmasters who worked them, and of the generations of toiling Indian
workers who spent their lives in wresting treasure from the bowels of
the earth. Religi