, or even sufficient for the hardy cactus. The
grounds are honeycombed in all directions with mines; silver is king.

Mines in Mexico are individual property, and do not, as we have seen
stated, belong to the government, unless they are abandoned, when they
revert to the state, and are very promptly sold for the benefit of the
public treasury. In order to keep good the title, a mine must be
absolutely worked during four months of the year. If this rule is in any
way evaded, the government confiscates the property and at once offers
it for sale, so that those on the lookout for such chances often obtain
a good title at a merely nominal price. But there are mines and mines in
this country, as in our western districts; some will pay to work and
some will not. As a rule it depends as much upon the management of such
a property as upon the richness of the native ore, whether it yields a
profitable return for the money invested in the enterprise.

In climbing to the level of the city from the plain below, the railroad
sometimes doubles upon itself horseshoe fashion, like a huge serpent
gathering its body in coils for a forward spring, winding about the
hills and among the mines, affording here and there glimpses of grand
and attractive scenery embracing the fertile plains of Fresnillo, and in
the blue distance the main range of the Sierra Madre. The color of these
distant mountain ranges changes constantly, varying with the morning,
noon, and twilight hues, producing effects which one does not weary of
quietly watching by the hour together.

Vegetables, charcoal, fruit, and market produce generally are brought
into the town from various distances on the backs of the natives. These
Indians will tire the best horse in the distance they can cover in the
same length of time, while carrying a hundred pounds and more upon their
backs. Mules and donkeys are also much in use, but the lower classes of
both sexes universally carry heavy burdens upon their backs from early
youth. Some of the Indian women are seen bearing loads of pottery or
jars of water upon their shoulders with seeming ease, under which an
ordinary Irish laborer would stagger. Comparatively few wheeled vehicles
are in use, and these are of the rudest character, the wheel being
composed of three pieces of timber, so secured together as to form a
circle, but having no spokes or tire, very like the ancient African and
Egyptian models. To such a vehicle a couple of oxen