Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 2.djvu/492

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474
MEXICO IN 1827.

dientes de la casa," (yearly servants of the family,) while the rest, though not in permanent annual employment, derive their subsistence from the same source. The Count's house, with the church and other buildings connected with it, are solid and spacious, though by no means magnificent. The pueblo presents an appearance of wretchedness totally unworthy of its vicinity to the abode of so wealthy a proprietor: it consists almost entirely of mud huts, and many of these are in a state of decay.

Nov. 24. From the Jărāl to San Luis Pŏtŏsī, sixteen leagues.

The road, on leaving the valley of El Jărāl, passes near a large pueblo called El Valle de San Francisco, four leagues from the Hacienda, and runs from thence to Tierra Blanca three leagues, La Pila three leagues, Real de los Pozos two, and San Luis three and a half. La Pila and Los Pozos were formerly amalgamation works, in which the ores from the mines of the Cerro de San Pedro were reduced. These mines have been abandoned for many years on account of the extreme poverty of the ores, which, notwithstanding a "ley de oro," by no means inconsiderable, will not defray the expence of working. Eighty thousand dollars were spent in a fruitless attempt to bring them into activity about ten years ago; but the heaps of old slag that are to be seen at the present day in every direction about San Luis attest their former abundance, as the epithet of Pŏtŏsī, bestowed upon the Intendancy, bespeaks the