d in liquor. There are both English and American miners at work
with fair pecuniary success; and this is almost the only locality where
foreign miners have been introduced. Government supports a school here
for teaching practical mining, established in an imposing structure
which was once a convent.

Quite a colony of Cornish miners emigrated to this place a few years
since, many of whom have acquired considerable means and have become
influential citizens. Here and in the immediate district, including Real
del Monte to the northwest, El Chico to the north, and Santa Rosa to the
west, there are nearly three hundred silver mines, all more or less
valuable. The most famous is named the Trinidad, which has yielded forty
million dollars to its owners in a period of ten years! Real del Monte
stands at an elevation of a little over nine thousand feet above the
sea. The country which surrounds this district is extremely interesting
in point of scenery. It was here that an English mining company came to
grief pecuniarily, under the name of the Real del Monte Mining Company.
At the organization of the enterprise, its shares were a hundred pounds
sterling each; but they sold in one year in the London market for
sixteen hundred pounds a share! The management was of a very reckless
and extravagant character. Economy is certainly more necessary in
conducting a silver mine than in nearly any other business. After a few
years, it was found that sixteen million dollars worth of silver had
been mined and realized upon, while the expenses had amounted to twenty
million dollars,--a deficit of four million dollars in a brief period.
The property was then sold to a Mexican company for a merely nominal
sum, and is now regularly worked at a handsome percentage of profit upon
the final cost. Much of the modern machinery was promptly discarded, and
the new managers returned to the old methods of milling the ore. The
Indians who bring in the supplies from the vicinity for this mining town
are typical of the race all over the country. At their homes, far away
from the city, they live in mud cabins, under a thatched roof, with the
earth for a floor. One room serves for every purpose, and is often
shared with pigs and poultry. These Indians do not eat meat once a
month, nay, scarcely once a year. Some wild fruits are added to their
humble fare, which consists almost wholly of tortillas, or cake made
from maize and half baked over charcoal. A rush ma