dministrador_ (overseer) at three million head. He then sent thirty
thousand sheep[71] to market, which yielded him from $2.50 to $3 a
head, or from $75,000 to $90,000 annually. The goats slaughtered on the
estate amounted to about the same number, and yielded about the same
amount of revenue. Besides all this, there is his annual product of
horses and cattle, and corn and grain fields many miles in extent.
Truly this Marquis of Jaral is a large farmer. But as I said of mining,
so I may also say that large capitals are necessary to carry on
agriculture successfully in the vast elevated plains of the northern,
or, rather, interior departments, for the whole value of the valley of
Jaral consists in an artificial lake, which an ancestor of the present
proprietor constructed before the Revolution for the purpose of
irrigation; for, without irrigation, his little kingdom would be
without value. I might speak of many other landed proprietors whose
estates are princely, but none are equal to Jaral. Indeed, all men of
wealth possess landed estates. It is the favorite investment for
successful miners to purchase a _few_ plantations, each of a dozen
leagues or so, under cultivation.

[71] WARD'S _Mexico_, vol. ii. p. 470.

CHAPTER XXXI.

Visit to Pachuca and Real del Monte.--Otumba and Tulanzingo.--The grand
Canal of Huehuetoca.--The Silver Mines of Pachuca.--Hakal Silver
Mines.--Real del Monte Mines.--The Anglo-Mexican Mining Fever.--My
Equipment to descend a Mine.--The great Steam-pump.--Descending the
great Shaft.--Galleries and Veins of Ore.--Among the Miners one
thousand Feet under Ground.--The Barrel Process of refining
Silver.--Another refining Establishment.

An opposition line of stages upon the road that extends sixty miles
from the city of Mexico to the northern extremity of the valley has
brought down the fare to $3. It is a hard road to travel in the wet
season, and not a very interesting one at any time. Three miles of
causeway across the salt marsh brought us to the church and village of
our Lady of Guadalupe Hidalgo. From this place we passed for several
leagues along the barren tract that lies between the two salt-ponds of
San Cristobal and Tezcuco, and soon arrived at Tulanzingo, where the
great battle of the Free-masons was fought, and where eight poor
fellows lost their lives in the bloody encounter. This, and the
horrible battle of Otumba, which Cortez fought a little way east of
this spot,