VALLEY OF THE RIO GRANDE. 
191 
obtain every thing that can be transported thither 
by wagons, though, of course, at a greatly enhanced 
cost The price of labor too has doubled, and in « 
some cases quadrupled. Day laborers (Mexican) 
receive five reals (sixty-two and a half cents), and find 
themselves. Mechanics, who are chiefly Americans, 
command very high wages. Carpenters and black- 
smiths earn three dollars a day, and when they take 
jobs, much more. Corn (maize), in the winter of 
1850- 51, brought from seven to eight dollars a fanega 
of two bushels and five eighths, although the following 
year it fell to five dollars. 
There are now two flour mills at the falls near El 
Paso ; one on the Mexican side, belonging to Ponce de 
Leon, and one on the American side, belonging to 
Mr. E. Hart. The latter is a fine establishment, and 
now supplies the United States troops here with 
flour. In 1850-51 flour was selling here from ten to 
twelve and a half cents per pound. 
There are a few respectable old Spanish families at 
El Paso, who possess much intelligence, as well as that 
elegance and dignity of manner which characterized 
their ancestors. Among these may be found many 
names which are illustrious in Spanish history and 
literature. But there is no great middle class, as in 
the United States and England. A vast gulf inter- 
venes between these Castilians and the masses, who 
are a mixed breed, possessing none of the virtues of 
their European ancestors, but all their vices, with those 
of the aborigines superadded. The Indian physiogno- 
my is indelibly stamped upon them ; and it requires 
little sagacity to discriminate between the pure and 
