t, and earning by his losses
and persistence the name of _el tonto_--"the fool." But--almost as if
his patron saint had resolved to teach his detractors a lesson--the
reward came. The richest _bonanza_ that the "mother lode" ever yielded
he struck. From the results of this great treasure--a mere fraction of
it--he caused the fine Valenciana church to be raised, whose handsome
facade still draws the traveller's attention and marks the romantic
episode of mining lore which gave it birth. The building of the temple
was begun in 1765; its cost was a million dollars.

Ancient and, in many cases, ruined churches, especially in some of the
northern states, lie scattered throughout the regions where great
mining communities dwelt--now dead and gone. But religion--or the
barbaric custodian of religion, the Inquisition--claimed her victims
among the workers of mines. At the beginning of the seventeenth century
it was that a rich mine--the Monoloa, in the State of Jalisco--was
being worked by one Trevino and his partner, who, having been denounced
to the Holy Office by jealous neighbours, they were accused of invoking
the aid of the devil in their work. The unfortunate mine-owner was
brought to the capital in consequence in 1649 and burned alive!

The Mexican miner, like his brothers of Peru or Chile, not content with
the churches and shrines above ground which his religion afforded,
often formed chapels and set up images in the subterranean caverns to
whose habitation his daily toil condemned him. Shrines and crosses are
frequently encountered in the galleries and chambers of Mexican mines
now, as ever. Often, candles are kept burning before them throughout
the eternal night, which they illuminate, and in some cases the devout
among the miners go through these underground labyrinths in their daily
toil in the dark, saving their candles to light the shrine! As they
pass this bright spot their accustomed hand comes up to make the sign
of the cross, and wearied knees humble themselves in a genuflexion. In
one of the mines at Guanajuato there is an elaborate underground shrine
where as many as two hundred candles burn at times, shedding a radiance
which contrasts weirdly with the gloomy depths of worked-out caverns
which surround it.

Such vast wealth as was extracted from some of these mines brought not
only material riches, but royal honours and State positions to their
owners. Titles of nobility were given by the Spanish soverei