LOWER CALIFOENIA. 93 



skin, ill one place raising a patch of white on a black ground, in another a dirty 

 red on white ; then these patches gradually expand, often with a certain regularity, 

 until the body becomes mottled over like a piebald horse or certain snakes and 

 salamanders. Hence the term, pinto, or " painted," applied to this malady, which 

 in many upland valleys prevails jointly with goitre over the whole community. 



Lower California. 



Lower California, at once the most remote, and geographically the most 

 distinct region of the republic, is at the same time the least important from the 

 political standpoint. It may, in fact, be said to be useless, except as presenting 

 a rampart of some 750 miles on the Pacific side of Mexican territoiy. With a 

 scant population of little over 30,000, and with scarcely any resources beyond its 

 mines, fisheries and salt-pits, it has not even been considered worthy of constitut- 

 ing a separate state, and still remains a simple territory belonging in common to 

 the whole commonwealth. It is so indifferently administered that the North 

 Americans have frequently crossed the frontier of the peninsula to work the 

 deposits of ores and salt at their pleasure without even the formality of a previous 

 concession. Extensive salt-beds were long known to stretch along the west coast 

 round the shores of Sebastian Vizcaino Bay ; but basins of saline efflorescences are 

 so numerous in other parts of Mexican territory that the Spaniards had no induce- 

 ment to work these vast Californian deposits. In 1884 some Mexican explorers 

 visiting the inlet known as Ojo de Liebre from a neighbouring spring, discovered 

 to their astonishment the remains of large mining works that had been constructed 

 by some American speculators. Here were landing-stages, platforms, dépots, 

 railways, trucks, and other rolling stock, occupying altogether a space of over 3| 

 miles. Evidently a large number of hands had been employed on the works ; yet 

 the Mexican Government had never been informed of these extensive operations, 

 either because of the remoteness of the peninsula and lack of local population or 

 more probably owing to the remissness or venality of the ofHcials. 



About half of the Lower Californian population is concentrated towards the 

 southern extremity of the peninsula, and chiefly in the vicinity of La Paz Bay. 

 The provincial capital, founded by the Jesuit missionaries, stands in the bed of a 

 waterless torrent on the north side of the bay, which is sheltered on the east 

 side by the rocky headland of Pichilingue. 



A well-kept road, lined by norias or draw-wells, winds between orchards, vine- 

 yards, coffee and other plantations from La Paz southwards to the flourishing 

 village of Todos Santos, on the Pacific coast. This district is watered by a 

 perennial stream, a rare phenomenon in Lower California. La Paz thus possesses 

 considerable agricultural resources; but its chief wealth still consists in its gold 

 and silver mines, which were formerly far more productive than at present, 

 yialding large supplies of the precious metals under the Jesuit administration. 

 The richest lodes were said to have been blocked in 17G7, when the missionaries 

 were expelled, and if so their position has been faithfully kept a profound secret 

 by the Indians ever since that epoch. 



