Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/508

 468 MEXICO. distant and desolate districts, without having recourse to the Mita or Tanda, which, in Peru and Chile, was in such general use ; while it is not improbable, that the absence of that system of forced labour, adopted South of the Equator, has contri- buted not a little to encourage the love of mining, which prevails at the present day, amongst the natives of New- Spain. Far from looking upon it with dread or repugnance, they regard it as their natural occupation, and appear to feel, in many parts of the country, a sovereign contempt for the agricultural population, which is reduced to vegetate upon a scanty daily pittance, without a chance of acquiring that sudden wealth, which sometimes falls to a Barretero''s lot. In addition to these accidental advantages, the ordinary wages of a miner are high ; and although the money which passes through his hands is usually as ill spent, as it is rapidly acquired, still, to ensure the means of indulging in a weekly excess, (the necessity of which seems to be an article of the mining creed in every country,) there are few Indians who will not enter gladly upon a week of labour. It is not, therefore, to be apprehended, that the late change of institutions in Mexico will occasion any difficulty in finding hands to carry on mining operations there, to whatever extent they may be pushed by the Companies, although there have been great complaints u^>on the subject, hitherto, in many districts, from the total dispersion of the population during the Civil War. Things revert, however, gradually, to their former state, and that without the necessity of any extraordi- nary exertion. At Tlalpujahiia, for instance, upon the first arrival of the Company, (in 1825,) one hundred and fifty labourers were collected with difficulty. In 1827, from twelve to sixteen hundred persons were in daily employment in the mines, besides from six to seven hundred more, who were occupied in cutting wood, and making charcoal in the neighbouring mountains. At Guanajuato, within one year after the establishment of the Anglo-Mexican and United