think improbable.[75]

I have often spoken of the peculiarities of peasant life in the country
and of the _peons_ of the cities. But there is another phase of humble
life to be considered--the social state of the mine laborer. Like all
men whose wages are very irregular, and subject to the fluctuations
which follow mining speculations, they themselves become irregular in
their lives. They have all heard of the many instances of persons of as
humble condition as themselves accidentally falling upon a princely
fortune, and they know, too, what a miraculous change such a discovery
makes in the social condition of a _peon_, for every miner in
Zacatecas knows the homely distich:

"Had the metals not been so rich at San Bernabe,
Ibarra would not have wed the daughter of Virey."[76]

In addition to scraps and snatches of songs, the mining laborers have
their _romances_, which are as wild as the _yarns_ of the sailor, and
have for their almost universal theme the miraculous acquisition and
loss of a fortune. The hero possesses princely wealth to-day, though
yesterday he was suffering for food, and to-morrow he will be again
bereft of all by the fickle turns that Fortune makes in the wheel of
destiny. The wildest of our romances never come up to many incidents
that have occurred in their own mine; and when they attempt fiction, it
is on the pattern of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. I do verily
believe that all that class of Arabian tales are but the reproduction
of the _romances_ from the Oriental gold-washings.

The most important mines in the State of San Luis Potosi are those near
Cuatorce. In the midst of bleak and precipitous mountain ridges is the
village of Cuatorce, from which a circuitous mountain road leads to the
entrance of the mining shafts, in which more wonderful things have
occurred than in the wildest of the "romances." The story of Padre
Flores is a familiar one, but will bear repeating.

PADRE FLORES.--CUATORCE.

The padre, being tired of the idle life of a pauper priest, bought, for
a small sum, the claim of some still more needy adventurer. After
following his small vein a little way, he came to a small cavern
containing the ore in a state of decomposition. This, in California,
would be called a "rotten vein." With all the difficulties to be
encountered in obtaining a fair value for mineral in a crude state, the
poor priest realized from his adventure over $3,000,000, which was
conside