Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 2.djvu/175

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MEXICO IN 1827.
161

partly amongst the superintendents, and labourers in the mines, and partly amongst the landed proprietors of the surrounding districts, each, and all of whom, it enables to become consumers of something more than maize-cakes, and home-spun cottons, by bringing within their reach a portion of those Imports, with which the American market is supplied by European ingenuity. Of the facility with which a taste for European productions is acquired, the total downfall of the native manufactures of wool and cotton, in the short space of four years, is a sufficient proof I have not the means of tracing the exact amount of the consumption of British manufactures in each of the Mining districts, but it is certain that, wherever a company has been established, shops have been opened, and regular supplies of goods drawn from the Capital, or the nearest port, not one-fiftieth part of which could have been disposed of, had the Mines continued unworked. The streets of Guănăjūātŏ, Sŏmbrĕrētĕ, and Zăcătēcăs, are full of large magazines; there is a constant communication between Cătōrcĕ and Rĕfūgĭŏ; as there is between the Mining towns of Sŏnōră and Cĭnăloă, and the ports of Măzătlān and Gūāymăs.

At Real del Monte, I was assured that the change which had taken place, in fourteen months, in the appearance of the population, was really wonderful; and at Tlălpŭjāhuă, which, in 1825, was a ruined mountain village, Mr. de Rivafinoli, (the Director of the Company established there,) informed me that