ction-works, and we both knew that
such complete appliances for the smelting of metal, as seemed from this
sign to exist here, were supposed to be the product of a high state of
civilization in comparatively modern times. As for Young, he declared
that the chimney gave him a regular jolt of homesickness; for, excepting
that it was built of stone instead of brick, it might have been, for the
look of it, transplanted hither directly from the region of the Back
Bay. "I s'pose we'll be hearin' th' noon whistle next," he said,
mournfully; and presently he added: "Do you know, Professor, I b'lieve
I'm beginnin' t' see daylight in all this tall talk you say th' Colonel
has been givin' us about th' 'rebellions,' as he calls 'em, that go on
here. He don't mean t' close our eyes up, th' Colonel don't, for he's a
first-class gentleman; but, bein' born an' bred a heathen, he don't know
any better. What he's tryin' t' tell us about, an' can't, because he
don't know th' English for it, is _strikes_. That's what's th' matter.
Miners are bound t' go on strikes. It's their nature, an' they can't
help it. That chimbly gives th' whole thing away. You just tell th'
Colonel that we've got down t' th' hard-pan an' really know what he's
been drivin' at. An' t' think of there bein' strikes in Mexico! I didn't
b'lieve that a Greaser had backbone enough, or ambition enough, t'
strike at anything!"

However, as I had no great amount of faith in Young's theory, I did not
attempt to translate to Tizoc what he had said to me; nor was there any
opportunity for further talk at that time. Already the foremost boats of
the flotilla had made a landing at a well-built pier that extended from
the shore into deep water; and a minute or two later our boat also
pulled in to the pier, and we disembarked. The general view of the town
that I then had showed me that it was closely built over an area rather
more than half a mile square; that the houses for the most part were
mere hovels, of which the largest could not contain more than two small
rooms; and that the few houses of a better sort were within the strong
stone wall by which the reduction-works also were enclosed. At the pier
where we landed a boat was in process of lading with bars of gold for
transport to the Treasure-house in the city; and I thought that I never
had seen anywhere more savage-looking fellows than the almost naked
laborers by whom the work of lading was carried on. Physically these men