fancy that that mount only had reality which was a mount of silver. The two are properly one, Pachuca and Real del Monte, the former being the city, the latter the hills behind it, many of which are regularly and largely mined, and the topmost one of which, six miles from the city, and the seat of several mines, being known exclusively by that title.
Here, too, are about three hundred English people, seventy-five workmen, and overseers, with their families. Two Spanish Protestant congregations are here gathered. The threefold cord of silver mines, and English and Spanish Church work, was too much for revolvers and robbers to overcome, and so we are off for Pachuca.
That Saturday morning on which we started was January 18th, 1873. Perhaps you remember it where you lived. I doubt not that it was stinging cold, for even here it was cool enough for an overcoat when rushing along with the open windows of a tireless car. One of the party picked up an icicle of a hand's length and half its breadth, at a station a few miles from the city, the only bit of ice I have seen growing all this season. The sunny side of a house was pleasant that morning. That was all. Long before noon it was sultry. Overcoats were off and umbrellas up, and we wilted under the torrid sun. How was it up your way?
Pachuca lies about sixty miles from Mexico to the north, and a little to the east. Our railroad takes us forty miles to Omatuska, where a breakfast and a stage await us. The first ate—and a goodly one it was to eat—the second is mounted. The party is four: two ministers, and two railroaders, a general, and a banker, leaders in one of the projected Mexican invasions. The stage-ride is about forty miles, the distance this way being a third greater than straight across the country, but a third less of coach-ride. The morning is splendid. The sun has warmed to his work at this ten and a half o'clock, but not fierce in burning. The road passes through a landscape of beauty and wealth and emptiness. Two or three haciendas, or plantations, cover almost the whole of the distance. The first stretches for six or eight miles, and is given up almost entirely to the culture of pulqui.
