Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/535

Rh, it is too far from any great centre for an outlet for productions; thirdly, they must compete with Indians, with whom a pair of trousers is an unheard of luxury, who sleep on the ground, eat from a gourd, and work for twenty-five cents a day.

From the earliest times, Oaxaca has been looked upon as El Dorado, the traditional land of gold. The chief tribute to Montezuma came from the sands of its rivers, and the Spaniards were told that the unconquered Indians living there guarded vast and unknown treasures. But this was in the time of Cortés, when the conquerors were sending out in every direction for gold. Believing it to be what it was described to him, Cortés arrogated to himself the title of Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca, and the faith in its riches has been maintained, though without sufficient reason, to the present day. In the catalogue of its natural wealth are included silver, gold, copper, lead, iron, slate, and coal, and perhaps quicksilver and precious stones. We met here several very intelligent gentlemen who owned mines of both gold and silver, and I take pleasure in here recording our indebtedness to Señores Romero and Endner, of the Oaxaca mint, and Don Constantino Rickards, a most generous and hospitable Englishman, who has lived in the country thirty years, and possesses valuable mineral property.

Antequera, the Beautiful, was the ancient name of the capital, now known as Oaxaca of Juarez. It contains twenty-six thousand seven hundred inhabitants, of which number, judging from the proportion seen at church and in the streets, more than twenty thousand are Indians. Like every city in Spanish America, it has its plaza, or central square, adorned with a fountain and shaded by trees, with seats for the people and a music-stand for the military band. Facing the plaza is the cathedral, with its façade guarded by many saints, disposed in niches, some of whom have been sorely shaken by earthquakes, that were once the scourge of this city, and may be the cause of the air of general decay, or rather of restoration, that pervades the place. There is scarcely a block that has not an unfinished building in it; and as to the streets, they seem to be maintaining a perpetual and running fight with the streams that plough them on