from 1556 to his time, amounted to the snug sum of $17,365,000. He
gives only the sum reported, and makes no calculation for the large
sums out of which the king was annually cheated at all the mines. That
my reader may understand how a sum so apparently incredible as five or
eight times seventeen millions of dollars could be taken out of a
single mine, he must recollect that Los Rayas was a most productive
mine shortly after the Conquest, and that for a century or two it was
comparatively of little value, until Mr. Jose Sardaneta undertook the
undermining of the rich mine of Santa Amita in 1740, and that afterward
the rich product of the lower levels of the Santa Amita are included in
this immense sum.

INDIANS AND SOLDIERS.

There is too much sameness in the details of the histories of the
various other important mines of this State and of those in the
adjoining State of Durango to justify the lengthening out this chapter,
and I will conclude it with giving the substance of a statement I heard
the American gentleman make on the subject of Indian depredations in
the very centre of the republic, showing the great inconvenience
suffered in consequence of the state of insecurity in which the people
constantly live. A party of their own Indians, a most degraded band of
cowardly vagabonds, that lived not a great way from the city, concluded
to personify a company of northern savages, in order more successfully
to plunder the inhabitants. With shoutings, these vagabonds rushed into
the houses of the people, who were so paralyzed by the very sight of
Indians in a hostile attitude, that, without resistance, they suffered
them to plunder whatever came within their reach which tempted their
cupidity or lust. At length, becoming satiated with liquor and
champagne that they had taken from a carrier, they had to retire and
camp out for the night. In their retreat they were pursued by a captain
and soldiers of the regular army, who, being more numerous than the
Indians, exhibited a great deal of courage until they came in sight of
the savages, when, all at once, it was concluded to encamp for the
night, and to resume the pursuit the next day, when the Indians would
be at such a distance that they would not disturb their pursuers by
their whooping.

[75] By reference to a long and able paper on the mines in the
hill of Proano (Fresnillo), it appears that one half of the cost
of four pumping-engines already in