Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/469

Rh the works. The organ cactus grins out of the rocks, and great yucca-leaved trees with pendent bunches of snow-white flowers hang above the buildings.

What an indomitable spirit was that of the man who built these works,—Peter Terreros, the first Count of Regla. It is estimated that he expended $2,500,000 upon the buildings constituting this refining establishment, sunk in this barranca, below the level of the table land. Right here, on the scene of his labors, let us recall who and what he was. As authority, I will quote from a writer of a quarter of a century ago, who repeats what was known and confirmed by Humboldt sixty years before. "In olden times the water in the Real del Monte mines had been lifted out of the Santa Brigeda and other shafts in bull-hides carried upon a windlass. . . . . But after a certain depth had been reached, the head of water could no longer be kept down by this process, and, in consequence, the Real del Monte was abandoned, about the beginning of the last century, and became a perfect ruin. Peter Terreros, then a man of limited means, conceived the idea of draining this abandoned mine by means of a tunnel or adit (socabon) through the rock, one mile and a quarter in length, till he should strike the Santa Brigeda shaft. From 1750 to 1762, he toiled until he reached the shaft, and also a bonanza, which continued for twelve years to yield an amount of silver that in our day appears fabulous. The veins which he struck from time to time in the tunnel kept the enterprise alive. His bonanza not only furnished the means for refitting and clearing out the old shaft, but from his surplus profits he laid out half a million dollars annually in the purchase of plantations, or six million dollars in the twelve years, equal to about five hundred thousand pounds' weight of silver. Besides, he loaned the king a million dollars, which has never been repaid, and built and equipped two ships of the line and gave them to his sovereign. He was then created (this muleteer and illiterate shopkeeper) Count of Regla. When his children were baptized, the procession walked upon bars of silver. He assured the king that, if he would visit him, wherever he walked it should be upon silver bars, and that his apartments should be lined with that precious metal."