BEWREATHED AND VAULTED TOMBS 



Photograph by Frank H. Probert 

 IN A MEXICAN CEMETERY 



Rentals are for perpetuity, for five years, or, in the case of the very poor, for one year. 

 In highland Mexico mummies are often taken out of the tombs and stood up, draped in 

 sheets, in long rows against the wall. The sight is gruesome in the extreme. 



the less happy or human in their habitat 

 than many of us? There is a lot of sym- 

 pathy wasted in this world, and maybe 

 if we highly civilized and sensitive crea- 

 tures lived closer to old Mother Nature 

 and listened to her teachings our ills and 

 ailments would vanish into thin air. 

 Riches and poverty, sickness and health, 

 joy and sorrow, leisure and work — in the 

 abstract these are only relative, and our 

 understanding of them is based on the 

 environment in which we live. 



KNOWS HE WAS BORN TO SERVE 



The Mexican peon knows that he is 

 born to serve, as did the old southern 

 darky, and caste or class distinction is 

 emphasized on all occasions. The mozo 

 rides silently behind the lordly caballero ; 

 the peon woman steps into the street and 

 bows her head as the padre passes ; in the 

 plaza on Sunday evening, when the 

 melody of martial music fills the air, the 

 upper classes parade in one direction, 

 while the peons gyrate as an outer ring 



in the opposite direction. As a class they 

 are industrious and skillful if the time 

 element is eliminated. 



The peon miner is a competent work- 

 man when unhampered by modern ma- 

 chines and has a "nose" for ore that is 

 truly remarkable. As tillers of the soil 

 their methods are primitive, but produc- 

 tive ; they still use oxen and the wooden 

 plowshare, and the fields are fenced with 

 imperishable dry-rock walls. In the mak- 

 ing of pottery and basketry they excel; 

 in tanning hides, saddlery, and the work- 

 ing of metals they are inimitable. The 

 women, too, can grind corn on a metate, 

 cook tortillas and frijoles, raise families, 

 launder clothes on a rock near the creek, 

 make the most exquisite laces and the 

 finest of drawn work with equal skill. 



A SONG PROM THE DEPTHS 



I recall an interesting experience at the 

 Nueva Luz shaft, the deepest shaft on 

 the Veta Madre today. It is 2,031 feet 

 deep, cut out of solid rock. Iron buckets, 



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