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The Hand upon the Wall.—Desiderio Fuentes, the lucky Miner.—Don Tomas Verduzco.

a century ago, Guanajuato was a town of very little importance. Before the sudden change in its fortune, which resulted from the rich yield of silver in the Valenciana and Rayas mines, the mining industry of Mexico had concentrated its activity in the works of Tasco, Pachuca, and Zacatecas. The title of ciudad (city) had been borne by Zacatecas since 1588, while Guanajuato, though founded in 1554, did not attain that rank till seventy-eight years later, in 1741. It was not known that the mountains inclosing it on all sides, and on the slope of which it was built, held within their stony bosom the Veto Madre (Mother Vein), the richest lode of silver in the world. The situation of Guanajuato is, besides, doubly advantageous. The city is situated at once in the richest mining district in Mexico, and in the best cultivated part of the fertile plains of the Bajio. It is thus the inhabitants call that large extent of country, about eighty leagues in circumference, which is bounded toward the side of Guanajuato by the Cordillera.

Alternately parched and inundated, the Bajio