344 S1LVEE SCOEIA. Book II. 
long as I remained here I never slept without my revolver 
under my pillow. Among the women prostitution is 
prevailing ; but, notwithstanding its extent, this evil must 
not be judged too severely. These people have good 
qualities, and are by no means deficient in better feelings ; 
but the change in the time of a generation from long habits 
of affluence and luxury, with a natural taste for pleasure, to 
extreme poverty — exposed to the seductions of unprincipled 
libertines and rich travelling merchants — the results were 
almost inevitable. To this may be added the common 
practice of the Church in Mexico, as well as in most parts 
of Spanish America, of fixing marriage fees at a price 
unattainable by the general body of the people, while no civil 
marriage contract exists ; so that it is not to be wondered at 
that connexions take place opposed to the moral feeling 
and to the welfare of society. The temporary residents 
make light of the evil, and have all their concubines pro 
tempore. 
The whole design of the town, with its pleasant streets 
and many noble edifices, marks the past periods of its 
splendour ; and, even in its present decay, it is far more 
beautiful as a whole than any town of similar pretension in 
the United States. 
The reader may form some idea of the vast quantities 
of silver-ore formerly smelted here, when I mention that 
hundreds of houses, and the walls of all the gardens and 
fields in the environs, are built of the scoria, in which, ac- 
cording to trustworthy analysis, enough silver remains to 
make fresh smelting, under better and more scientific 
management, a profitable undertaking. Forty-three mil- 
lions of marks of silver have been the produce of these 
mines in 130 years. Farther on in this chapter, I shall 
describe the mines of Santa Eulalia more exactly. I will 
