the scoria by the smelting process, of which I shall treat more
fully when I come to speak of the mines of Regla. The Guadalupe shaft,
close by the Rosario, was doing but little when I was there, as it does
not belong to the same proprietors. On the night of my arrival they had
just completed the work of pumping the water out of the San Nicholas
shaft, famous for the immense amount of silver taken from it in the
early period of the mining history of Mexico.

Mounted on a good horse, and followed by a lackey, I rode up the zigzag
carriage-road which the English company constructed a quarter of a
century since in order to convey their immense steam machinery to the
top of the mountain, some seven miles distant. This road is still kept
in a good state of repair, and forms a romantic drive for those who
keep carriages in the mountains. The sun was shining upon the
cultivated hills and rolling lands far below us as we jogged along our
winding way up the mountain. At every turn in the road new beauties
presented themselves. But it was getting too chilly for moralizing, and
both lackey and I were pleased when we reached the village upon the top
of the mountain, which bears the name of Real del Monte. The house of
entertainment here is kept by an English woman, who seems to be a part
of the mining establishment. While in her domicile, I found no occasion
to regret that I was again elevated into a cold latitude.

THE MINING MANIA.

More than thirty years have passed since that second South Sea
delusion, the Anglo-Spanish American mining fever, broke out in
England. It surpassed a thousand-fold the wildest of all the New York
and California mining and quartz mining organizations of the last five
years. Prudent financiers in London ran stark mad in calculating the
dividends they must unavoidably realize upon investments in a business
to be carried on in a distant country, and managed and controlled by a
debating society or board of directors in London. Money was advanced
with almost incredible recklessness, and agents were posted off with
all secrecy to be first to secure from the owner of some abandoned mine
the right to work it before the agent of some other company should
arrive on the ground. No mine was to be looked at that was not named in
the volumes of Humboldt, and any mine therein named was valued above
all price. In the end, some $50,000,000 of English capital ran out, and
was used up in Mexico. It was one of those