110 MEXICO, CENTEAL AMERICA, WEST INDIES. 



population, however wliich lias considerably increased during the last few decades, 

 is relatively dense, averaging nearly forty to the square mile. 



Of these states Guanajuato, which lies nearest to the capital, is best provided 

 with communications and has been longest settled by the whites ; hence it is also 

 the richest and the most thickly peopled in proportion to its extent. Guanajuato, 

 its capital, stands at an altitude of 6,700 feet in a deep and narrow gorge flanked 

 by bare jagged cliffs, and accessible only by a single winding path. Here the 

 houses with their flat roofs rise one above another like a heap of dice piled up 

 in disorder. The mining villages are grouped here and there along the escarp- 

 ments, and the workshops are scattered over the terraces and in the depressions. 

 One of these industrial centres is the famous Valenciana, where the reta madre, 

 or main lode of Guanajuato, nowhere less than 30 and in some places over 160 

 feet thick, constitutes an enormous mass of argentiferous ores, which, between the 

 years 1768 and 1810, gave an annual yield of over £1,520,000. This is the 

 deepest mine in Mexico, having been worked down to 2,000 feet below the surface. 

 But since the war of independence it has been flooded, and more than one English 

 company has in vain attempted to resume operations, yet the lode is still supposed 

 to contain from £280,000,000 to £320,000,000 of silver. 



La Luz, a town lying a short distance to the north-west in the group of the 

 Gigante or " Giant " Mountains, is also surrounded by mineral deposits. At 

 present the Guanajuato mint yearly issues specie to the value of £950,000, of 

 which £160,000 in gold, the rest silver, nearly all derived from the surrounding 

 mines. These Guanajuato mines have become famous in physiography for the 

 subterranean rumblings often heard in them. In 178-1 they were so violent that 

 the terrified inhabitants took to flight, although the underground thunders were 

 accompanied by no earthquakes. One of the neighbouring hills takes the name 

 of the Bramador, or " Roarer." Guanajuato is one of the historic cities of the 

 war of independence. Here the insurgents, aided by about 20,000 Indians and 

 armed only with knives and sticks, gained their first victory ; the plunder was 

 enormous, about £1,000,000 having been taken in the citadel alone. The little 

 town of Dolores, whose parish priest was Hidalgo, leader of the insurrection, lies 

 some 25 miles north-east of Guanajuato ; since the revolution it has taken the 

 name of Dolores Hidalgo. 



Guanajuato is rivalled in population bj^ Leon de los Aldamas, which, like the 

 capital, lies on an upper affluent of the Rio Lerma, but in a far more accessible 

 position and under a more agreeable climate. The city, which is dominated on 

 the north by the group of the Giant Mountains, spreads over a fertile and well- 

 cultivated plain at the north-west extremity of the alluvial zone, which, under the 

 name of Bajio, sweeps in crescent form right across the whole State of Guanajuato. 

 Leon, which despite its large size has never ranked as a capital, possesses nume- 

 rous factories, and here are specially produced the rich saddles and trappings so 

 much affected by the Mexican cavaliers. The railway which traverses the Bajio 

 zone, and one branch of which runs to Guanajuato, passes close to nearly all the 

 important towns of the state. Such are Sllao, dominated by the Sierra de Cubilete, 



