made, and a wheel-pit built for its reception. Eight of the old arastres, (worked by water,) had been repaired; dwelling-houses for miners built; smelting furnaces erected; stabling completed for 500 mules and horses; and every preparation made for putting the whole establishment into activity, the instant that the drainage of the mines could be effected.
To accomplish this, five large steam-engines, (three of Woolf's, and two of Taylor's,) together with one steam stamping-engine, and two small saw mill-engines, amounting in all to 1500 tons of machinery, were sent out from England; all of which, at the period of my visit, had been safely transported from the coast to Real del Monte, by the party under the orders of Captain Colquhoun, whose exertions in this most arduous enterprise, had they been made in the field, instead of having occurred in the service of a private Association, would have excited both the surprise and the gratitude of his country. Seven hundred mules were employed, during five months, upon this great work, with from seventy to one hundred men; without including those who had been previously occupied in repairing such parts of the road between Veracruz and Perote, as must have proved impassable for loaded waggons.
Nothing could be more honourable to the director. Captain Vetch, than the flourishing state of the establishment at the period of my visit; nor do I think that the most timorous of the shareholders would
