MINING REGION INDIANS CHARACTER AND HABITS. 295 



during the rainy season the levels around the rock which is the 

 foundation of the town, become filled with stagnant pools until the 

 whole adjacent country is covered with water. The burning sun 

 of the coast acts rapidly upon these shallow marshes and fills them 

 with insects and miasma. San Bias soon becomes uninhabitable, 

 and its population betake themselves either to Tepic, Guadalajara, 

 or the first elevations of the mountains in the interior. 



The only mining region of any note in Jalisco is that of Bolanos. 

 The mines of Hostotipaquillo, near Tepic, are now abandoned; 

 those of Guichichila, Santa Maria del Oro, Santa Martin and 

 Ameca, in the district of Etzatlan, in the neighborhood of Cocula, 

 are partially wrought. Among the unexplored sites of base and 

 spurious metals in this State, we may mention those found in the 

 vicinity of Compostella, those near the ranchos of Rosa Morada and 

 Buena Vista, towards the coast, between the villages of Santiago 

 and Acaponeta, and those near Guajicoria, north of the last named 

 village. 



The Islands of La Isabela, San Juanico and Marias, lie on the 

 Pacific coast of Jalisco. 



The aborigines of Jalisco, formerly warlike and devoted to a 

 bloody religion, belong to the tribes of Cazcanes, Guachichiles and 

 Guamanes. They are most generally tillers of the ground, ad- 

 hering to the doctrines of the Catholic church, and they have par- 

 ticular fondness for settling a while in lonely and wild regions, and 

 for changing their place of residence frequently. The manners and 

 customs of the Guachichiles are in many respects peculiar. They 

 still use the bow and arrow as weapons. Their quivers are made 

 of deer and shark skins, and the points of their reed arrows are 

 formed of a hard wood and rarely of copper. The garments of the 

 men consist of a kind of short tunic, roughly made by themselves 

 of blue or brown cotton material, with a girdle hanging down in 

 front and behind, to which is generally added a pair of trousers of 

 tanned goat or deer skin. Married persons, men as well as women, 

 wear straw hats with broad rims and high crowns, ornamented with 

 a narrow ribbon of bright colored wool and tassels. Their black 

 bushy hair is worn very long, bound with bright colored ribbons and 

 tassels, or plaited in queus. No unmarried person, male or female, 

 dare wear a hat. The women are clothed with an under garment 

 of rough wool or cotton and a mantle of the same material, which 

 has an aperture on top through which they pass their heads. When 

 2l 



