Page:Vagabond life in Mexico.djvu/181

Rh valleys in the vicinity of Guanajuato, the Cordillera rears its metalliferous crest, whose sides are veined with lodes of gold and silver, and which delivers to the mattock of the miner the immense treasures of the Veta Madre. The striking contrast that is visible between the laborer and the miner is nowhere so strongly apparent as in this part of the Bajio. Humble and submissive, the Indian husbandman is at every one's mercy. The miner, haughty and independent, takes a higher rank; and this claim is justified, we must admit, by the importance of the duty he performs. Obliged to submit to labor which yields him only limited results, the husbandman finishes his work in silence, while the pickaxe of the miner resounds, so to speak, to the end of the world, and is constantly adding, at every stroke, to the riches of mankind. Prosperity is not long in coming to the indefatigable miner. The slopes of the hills, the ravines, and the summits of the mountains swarm with a dense population, among whom the lucky finders of a new lode scatter their hard-earned money with thoughtless liberality, and squander in one day the earnings of six months. From the French miner Laborde, who lavished thousands upon Cathedrals, down to the meanest peon, the history of this bold workman has been always the same. Fortune is the only god he worships. He goes to his dangerous occupation as if specially sent thither by Divine Providence; and this proud thought is favored by the laws of the country, old privileges according the title of nobility to the worker in the