was about that caused such a loss of
life and induced such a display of enthusiastic devotion. "That is a
question," he replied, "which the rank and file of either army could not
have answered, though of course the leaders had their personal schemes
to subserve,--schemes of self-aggrandizement." It was Lamartine who said
significantly, "Civil wars leave nothing but tombs."

It is the custom for a stranger to descend one or more of the silver
mines; indeed, it may be said to be the one thing to do at Zacatecas,
but for which only the most awkward means imaginable are supplied, such
as ladders formed of a single long, notched pole, quite possible for an
acrobat or performer on the trapeze. It is up and down these hazardous
poles that the Indian miners, in night and day gangs, climb, while
carrying heavy canvas bags of ore weighing nearly or quite two hundred
pounds each. The writer is free to acknowledge that he did not improve
the opportunity to explore the bowels of the earth at Zacatecas, having
performed his full share of this sort of thing in other parts of the
world.

Zacatecas has its plaza; all Spanish and Mexican towns have one.
Probably, in laying out a town, the originators first select this
important centre, and then all other avenues, streets, and edifices are
made to conform to this location. In the middle of this plaza is a large
stone fountain, about which groups of native women are constantly busy
dipping water and filling their earthen jars, while hard by other women,
squatting on their haunches, offer oranges, pineapples, figs, and
bananas for sale. How these Mexican markets swarm with people and glow
with color, backed by moss-grown walls and ruined archways! Long burro
trains block the roadway, and others are seen winding down the zigzag
paths of the overhanging declivities. Close at hand within these low
adobe hovels, pulque is being retailed at a penny a tumbler. It is the
lager-beer of the country. Poverty, great poverty, stares us in the
face. No people could be more miserably housed, living and sleeping as
they do upon the bare ground, and owning only the few pitiful rags that
hang about their bodies. At the doors of these mud cabins women are seen
making tortillas with their rude stone implements. These little flat
cakes are bread and meat to them. Now and again one observes forms and
faces among the young native women that an artist would travel far to
study; but although some few are thus ext