Page:Pictures of life in Mexico Vol 2.djvu/78

56 Xalapa to Puebla containing between 2,000 and 3,000 inhabitants. The dwellings are chiefly of only one low story, strongly built; and the town is well supplied with fresh water from the elevated grounds beside it. The country around is rugged and hilly, interspersed with dreary moors and hollow chasms; and the people are for the most part, as wild and uncouth as the features of the scenery.

Gueretaro, on the road northwards, is a cotton-manufacturing city, containing 10,000 inhabitants, and celebrated as the birthplace of a numerous family of pronunciamientos. The population are remarkably ignorant, and the place literally swarms with priests and soldiers.

Guanajuato is famous for its silver-mines, the working of which was formerly profitable in the extreme; but the better part of the ore has been obtained, and the city is now comparatively deserted in consequence.

Zacatecas is a still more celebrated northern mining town, situated among silver-producing mountains. Its streets are narrow, crooked, and precipitous; churches and religious shows are very numerous, although the lower class