g, except the burning of some
outhouses, which we went out to see. The custom of roofing houses with
pine-shingles ("tacumeniles"), and the general use of wood for building
all the best houses, make fires very common here. During the few days
we spent in the Real district, I find in my notebook mention of three
fires which we saw. We spent the next day in resting, and in visiting
the mine-works near at hand. The day after, an Englishman who had lived
many years at the Real offered to take us out for a day's ride; and the
Company's Administrador lent us two of his own horses, for the poor
beasts from Pachuca could hardly have gone so far. The first place we
visited was Penas Cargadas, the "loaded rocks." Riding through a thick
wood of oaks and pines, we came suddenly in view of several sugar-loaf
peaks, some three hundred feet high, tapering almost to a point at the
top, and each one crowned with a mass of rocks which seem to have been
balanced in unstable equilibrium on its point,--looking as though the
first puff of wind would bring them down. The pillars were of
porphyritic conglomerate, which had been disintegrated and worn away by
wind and rain; while the great masses resting on them, probably of
solid porphyry, had been less affected by these influences. It was the
most curious example of the weathering of rocks that we had ever seen.
From Penas Cargadas we rode on to the farm of Guajalote, where the
Company has forests, and cuts wood and burns charcoal for the mines and
the refining works. Don Alejandro, the tenant of the farm, was a
Scotchman, and a good fellow. He could not go on with us, for he had
invited a party of neighbours to eat up a kid that had been cooked in a
hole in the ground, with embers upon it, after Sandwich Island fashion.
This is called a _barbacoa_--a barbecue. We should have liked to be at
the feast, but time was short, so we rode on to the top of Mount Jacal,
12,000 feet above the sea, where there was a view of mountains and
valleys, and heat that was positively melting. Thence down to the Cerro
de Navajas, the "hill of knives." It is on the sides of this hill that
obsidian is found in enormous quantities. Before the conquerors
introduced the use of iron, these deposits were regularly mined, and
this place was the Sheffield of Mexico.

We were curious to see all that was to be seen; for Mr. Christy's
Mexican collection, already large before our visit, and destined to
become much larger, con