140 NEW TRACKS IN NORTH AMERICA. 
different languages, and seemed to consider that the more 
noise they made the more certain they were to sell their 
commodities. 
From the market I visited the principal street, and one 
glance at the large shops and mercantile establishments 
showed the nature of business here. Many of the counters 
were polished mahogany, the windows plate-glass, the goods 
mostly of English manufacture. Here, as in the other silver- 
producing States, merchants of capital were absorbing the 
precious metal, and sending it out of the country almost as 
rapidly as it was taken from the ground. I watched the 
handfuls of large silver dollars rattle on the counters, and saw 
how very little the people could buy for their money. A 
common shirt, for instance, costs at wholesale prices about. 
three shillings; on entering Mazatlan the import duties 
double it, the merchant adds another three shillings as legiti- 
mate profit, and, including a penny or two for carriage, it 
is retailed at two and a half dollars in coin. All this 
comes out of the pockets of the people, and if mining is pros- 
perous, the traders make enormous fortunes, and can well 
afford to build the splendid establishments which contrast s0 
strongly with the poverty and degradation seen on all sides. 
I next went to the plaza. The clocks were striking eight, 
and the troops were being inspected. In this little place of 
11,000 inhabitants, 2,000 soldiers were being maintained ; 
there were more men drilling in the plaza than could be 
found otherwise engaged throughout the town. The appear- 
ance of these soldiers was a perfect burlesque ; they wore 
straw hats with green ribbon, but here all distinction of 
uniform ended; one had a broadsword, another a flint-lock 
musket, a third a French rifle, a fourth nothing but a club, 
and all were clothed in coarse cotton cloth, called manta. It 
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