108 MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA, WEST INDIES. 



the public feasts and sacrifices, but where the solitary traveller now surveys 

 nothing but ruins overgrown with scrub. Traces of these buildings are met strewn 

 over a space of 70 square miles. According to Clavigero, the Cerro de los Edificios 

 is the famous Chicomoztoc of the Nahua legends, that is, the " Seven Caves," 

 whence the Aztecs set out on their wanderings to the Anahuac plateau. Another 

 ancient city, formerly capital of the confederation of the Nayarit people, lies 60 miles 

 south-west of the Qaemada, as the ruins are called, in a lateral valley of the Lerma. 

 Here, also, are seen the remains of a fortress and a temple overlooking the plain ; 

 Teul, the name of the old city, is the same as Teol, the Aztec title of the sun-god. 



The State of San Luis Potosi resembles that of Zacatecas in its physical 

 appearance and the disposition of its two watersheds, one inclining towards the 

 northern depressions, the other facing the Gulf of Mexico, and comprised within 

 the Panuco basin. Like Zacatecas, it is also one of the most productive mining 

 regions in the republic. But its agricultural and industrial importance is increasing 

 from year to year, and these sources already yield a larger income than its argenti- 

 ferous ores. Even the city of Catorce, although lying in the arid northern part 

 of the state at an altitude of 8,850 feet, has discovered a considerable source of 

 wealth in the preparation of the ixtli fibre. Nearly all the silver coined in the 

 San Luis mint, from two to three million dollars a year, comes from the Catorce 

 mines. The city, which is said to take its name from the massacre of Catorce 

 (" fourteen ") soldiers, lies in a narrow gorge on a mass of rocky débris formed by 

 an old landslip ; its foundation dates from the discovery in 1773 of the rich lodes 

 in the neighbouring mountain, the pyramidal double- crested Cerro del Fraile. 



San Luis, distinguished from so many other places of the same name by the 

 epithet of Potosi, indicating its great mineral wealth, no longer deserves its title 

 since the famous San Pedro mine and most of the surrounding deposits have 

 been abandoned. The city stands on the site of the ancient Tangamanijn of the 

 Chichimecs, in a depression on the edge of the plateau 6,230 feet above sea-level, 

 whence the running waters flow through the Rio Yerde to the Panuco. San Luis 

 is so completely embowered in a zone of gardens and plantations that nothing is 

 visible from a distance except the domes of the numerous churches rising above 

 the surrounding verdure. Like Monterey, Chihuahua, and some other places, the 

 capital of the State of San Luis Potosi was for a time the seat of the Mexican 

 Government during the French invasion. It had already lost half of its popula- 

 tion, owing to the exhaustion of the mines to which it owed its prosperity in the 

 eighteenth century. The opening of the railway between Yera Cruz and Mexico 

 also diverted much of its trade southwards, causing a further decrease of popula- 

 tion. But the new line to Tampico has at last given it a direct outlet seawards, 

 and this cannot fail to be followed by a revival of its languishing trade and 

 industries. The district yields an abundance of cereals, fruits, vegetables, textile 

 fibres, and fermented drinks extracted from the maguey or other plants of the 

 same family. The citizens, noted for their enterprise and energetic habits, look 

 forward to the time when San Luis will take the second rank, if it does not rival 

 Mexico itself in commercial importance. 



