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Page:The Story of Mexico.djvu/441

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PHYSICAL ADVANTAGES.
409

bition, for whom a large box is reserved. The Indians of the neighborhood, on the opening night of the new entertainment, flocked to see what it was like, had free admission, and the house was crowded with an amazed and delighted audience. Enthusiasm was great, especially when the national banner was waved to the stirring strains of the fine national march of Mexico.

It is to such influences as these that Mexico will owe her success. The native race requires good masters, good examples, and the opportunity of good intellectual training, to enable it, in future, to walk alone up the steep path of national progress.

The great source of wealth in Mexico is her mineral productions, which have been renowned from the early period when they allured Cortés and his companions to endure hardship and risk defeat on their difficult passage up to Anahuac. The most sanguine dreams of the Spanish conquerors have yet to be realized in the possible amounts to be yielded from these mines in the future, when stable government shall have increased the population of the widespread mining districts to an extent capable of developing all the riches they contain.

The mines of Guanajuato, which have been the most worked, and which have already yielded enormously, as yet give no signs of being exhausted. The soil of the state of Guerrero has been pronounced to be one extensive crust of silver and gold. The northern states of the Republic contain inexhaustible veins of gold and silver in their mountain ranges. Silver and gold are the metals most worked.