Pachuca

“ Zacatula, the most northern sea port of any consequence in the intendancy of Mexico, on the shores of the Pacific, is situated on the borders of the river Zacatula.
Pachuca is one of the most ancient mines of New Spain, and the village dependent on this town called Pachuquillo, is said to be the first Spanish village that was built in the vale of Anahuac. The height of Pachuca is 8141 feet above the sea. ”

“ Pachuca is the capital of the State of Hidalgo, lying on a plain at an altitude of eight thousand feet and more, environed by purple hills, and is one of the oldest mining districts in the republic, having been worked long before the Spanish conquest. It has a population of about twenty thousand, nearly half of whom are Indian miners. The surrounding hills are scarred all over with the opening of mines. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There was no knowing what rosy tale Pachuca had told them; more than likely that the American army had crossed the border and that they were striking for their altars and their fires. He saw women, babies, and household goods loaded upon his good horse-flesh and disappearing down the road.
Scott’s blood boiled. His impulse was to shoot Juan Pachuca without warning. He raised his arm and then he paused. One does not shoot men in the back easily unless one is used to doing it. At that moment a Mexican saw him and yelled. Instantly everyone saw him. Pachuca whirled his horse about. ”

“ Juan Pachuca opened the hunting-knife and surveyed it in a business-like fashion. There was a sudden movement of his arm and poor Yellow shivered and crumpled up noiselessly. Quietly, the knife still in his hand, Pachuca slipped behind the building and continued his way toward the corral. He reached the car unhindered and breathed a sigh of relief; the rest would be plain sailing. A peep into the tonneau showed him that the plunder had been removed; but that, of course, he had expected. He jumped into the car and started the engine. ”

“ Hills rise on our left, as we move north by east, well clad in the hot and purple sunlight, well stripped of all other drapery; an aqueduct half a mile long strides across a deep gully, bearing water after the high Roman fashion, from Pachuquita, or Little Pachuca, to Omatuska. The half-way station is only a stopping-place under the trees, with a pulqui shop and a fruit-stand on the ground, of bananas, oranges, and pea-nuts. A cavalcade of horses drives up. Are they robbers? ”

“ A lady from the States has opened a Spanish and an English school, and Pachuca bids fair to be the silver circuit of the Mexican Conference not many days hence.
Invest in these operations. They are as Old as God and as New—from everlasting to everlasting. Put your money and your prayers into the soul silver mines, and you will lay up treasures in heaven, where no Mexican robbers nor thieves of worldliness ever break through or steal, and where you shall be receiving increasing and immeasurable interest on these human and earthly and present investments for ever and ever. ”

“ I mean, just being beautiful and guarded and all that sort of thing. At home we like a girl who has seen a little of life,” apologetically.
“Not a young lady of family!” said Pachuca, decidedly.
“Well, of course, in America we don’t think a lot about family, though it’s nice to have it if you can. We think more of education and getting on in the world. Señor, I wish you would get down and look at that engine; there’s something awfully wrong with it.”
Polly spoke suddenly for Juan Pachuca was leaning very close to her. ”

“ She crept cautiously out of the arroyo. If only none of the men on horseback saw her she might manage it, wild as her plan was. She shook with fear but she did not falter; a girl does not have an obstinate chin for nothing. She glanced both ways; Pachuca was still riding up and down, issuing orders which were obeyed noisily but cheerfully. She saw him point toward the corral and saw the men who had been loading the car with plunder start toward the corral on a run. ”

“ We need the excitement and the stimulus of action to bring out our better points. Also, Pachuca’s friends were not of the sort who cared much for the quiet life. In those few months of association with the great Villa, he had met men of various kinds; men who were honestly trying to do something for Mexico; men who were dishonestly trying to do something for themselves; and men who were in such a truly desperate frame of mind after ten years of revolution, banditry, and general upset, that they scarcely knew what they were doing. ”

“ The importance of the Pachuca mines is shown by the statement that they produce six million ounces of silver and 30,000 ounces of gold yearly. Of the population of the city, of forty thousand souls, seven thousand are employed underground.
All of the Mexican states are silver bearing, although those which contain the famous mines are the most important, as:—Sonora, Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosi, Guanajuato, Querétaro, Hidalgo (Pachuca) , Mexico. All these states contain numerous mining districts—cities, towns, camps—which it would take too much space here to enumerate. ”

“ We had one more day among the mines, and then went back to Pachuca, and next day to Mexico in the Diligence. Everywhere the same hospitality and good-natured interest in us and our doings, often shown by people with whom we had hardly the slightest acquaintance. Travelling here is very different from what it is in a country on which the shadow of Murray’s Handbook has fallen. ”

“ The jefe politico of Pachuca has a contract with Candido Fernandez, owner of the tobacco plantation 'San Cristobal la Vega,' whereby he agrees to deliver 500 able-bodied laborers a year for fifty pesos each. The jefe gets special nominal government rates on the railroads, his guards are paid for by the government, so the four days' trip from Pachuca costs him only three pesos and a half per man. ”

“ If he could bring to the revolutionary chiefs of the new party men, arms, and money, he might hope for a warm reception.
During the fortnight referred to he had communicated with one Angel Gonzales, previously mentioned, who had also quarreled with Villa and been rigorously persecuted by him. Gonzales was at the head of a small band which he was quite willing to consolidate with Pachuca’s men, and they had agreed to meet and discuss ways and means. It was toward this rendezvous that Pachuca had been journeying when he stopped to raid the Athens mining camp. ”

“ We are back to Regla and off to Pachuca none too early, for it is four and one-fourth of the clock ere we leave our too-hospitable friends of the valley, and turn homeward our horses' heads and our own—well-turned these latter be already by what we have seen. It is dark at six, and the ride is five hours, and the country full of robbers. Dark falls on us before we reach Velasco—thick, soft, warm. ”

“ We were invited to go with them as far as Pachuca; and accordingly we rose very early on the 28th of March, got some chocolate under difficulties, and started in the Diligence, seven grown-up people, and a baby, who was very good, and was spoken of and to as “leoncito.” On the high plateaus of Mexico, the children of European parents grow up as healthy and strong as at home; it is only in the districts at a lower elevation above the sea, on the coasts for instance, that they do not thrive. ”

“ A few days previous to the one on which we find the four boys headed for the railroad to foil the would-be train robbers, they had come to Pachuca, which is located some sixty miles from the City of Mexico, on horses furnished them by Gen. Sanchez, to see the mines and the beautiful mountains overlooking the plains of Quesco. Every day they took long rides in various directions, in spite of the unsettled condition of the country—a condition which compelled them always to go armed with their trusty Marlins and Colts—and that is how they happened to be on the Real road at such an opportune time. ”

“ The principal districts in the neighborhood of Mexico were Taxco and Pachuca, and Tlalpujagua in Michoacan. Since the days of the conquest Spaniards had worked the veins of Taxco, and Cortés constructed there a gallery, El Socabon del Rey, of sufficient dimensions to be entered on horseback for a distance of about three hundred feet. This district reached the height of its prosperity between 1752 and 1762, after which it declined so rapidly that at the end of the century the yield, together with that of the mines of Tehuilotepec and others, barely amounted to 60,000 marks of silver. ”

“ Even for the former purpose, however, two columns of some 5000 effectives each were needed, and the men as well as clothing for them could not be provided. The only immediate operations, therefore, aside from the establishment of new posts on the road to Vera Cruz, were the peaceful occupation of Pachuca, a mining town about fifty miles northeast of Mexico, Toluca, about thirty-eight miles distant in the opposite direction, and Cuernavaca, the key to the Acapulco region, a little farther away toward the southwest. ”

“ It’s too good a country to go to the dogs. But about this Juan Pachuca——”
“He is no business of mine,” replied the Colonel, briefly. “He was out of favor with the Carranza government 248 and evidently hopes to get into the saddle again through the revolution. Personally, I do not believe he will. General Obregon is not fond of his type. Angel Gonzales is what you call in your country a regular bad lot. I have orders in this dispatch to look into his case. As to the automobile. I can give you an order for the car which you saw outside—the small one. I can’t spare any men.”
“Mendoza’s Ford?” ”

“ Pachuca and Zimapan in Hidalgo, Etzatlan in Jalisco, four in Mexico, Angangueo and Tlalpujahua in Michoacan, Ixtlan and Peñoles in Oajaca, Tetela del Oro in Puebla, Doctor in Querétaro, San Pedro in San Luis Potosí, seven in Sinaloa, Promontorios and Minas Nuevas in Sonora, and nine in Zacatecas. There is native silver in the districts of Batopilas in Chihuahua, Guanajuato, . Pachuca, and Zacatecas. Argentiferous and platiniferous ores are found in the district of Jacala, or Santa María de Álamos, in Hidalgo. [16] Most of the gold and silver ore in Mexico is found in veins. ”

“ Well, no, Villa’s in a class by himself. You can’t call a man who has controlled a state and who has dictated to presidents, a bandit, can you? He’s on too big a scale. Pachuca took up banditry, in a gentlemanly sort of way ”

“ Every added "ta" shortened the time. Could one have been made to say "quickly" in any prettier manner? It is a pleasant privilege, and makes the family and friendly diminutives very cordial and delightful.
Ten miles, and Zumpango is reached. These miles go through a road but slightly traveled, and across fields susceptible of high culture. We cross the divide between Mexico and Pachuca, a hardly noticeable swell, and find ourselves in the rich valley of the capital. Zumpango is a pretty and lively town of five thousand souls. A noisy crowd of chanticleers are keeping up great disturbance. ”

“ His ancient beneficiating hacienda of Regla, say eighteen miles from Pachuca, is of great interest. A most excellent wagon-road, constructed by the Real del Monte Company, at large expense, leads to it. As many as eighty heavily loaded ore-wagons, each drawn by from eight to a dozen mules, traverse it in a single day. ”

“ The Hacienda de Regla, [2] which we reached about noon, is seven leagues from Pachuca, the termination of the road; it is a heterogeneous collection of buildings, crowded into a mighty gorge, which is walled across. In describing this, the strongest of those silver works erected in the last century, I scarcely know how to approach it; stupendous works of nature vie with massive buildings erected by man, either one of which would arrest the attention of a tourist in any land. ”

“ Juan Pachuca helped himself to what he wanted and shot two of our boys.”
“Killed them?”
“No, they ain’t killed, but one of ’em’s likely to lose a leg. He knifed one, but the knife was dull and he ain’t hurt much. But that ain’t what I come over here about.” And Tom went on with Li Yow’s story of the Casa Grande raid, the arrival of Scott, Hard and Polly, and the fire. “I dunno and he dunno who done the burnin’ or what else has happened over there, but he says they heard Pachuca say somethin’ about meeting Angel Gonzales, and I guess you know who he is. ”

“ A few foreigners are employed at high wages in the mines of Chihuahua and the neighboring States, and also at the town of Pachuca, but they generally occupy positions like that of superintendent or engineer. ”

“ But there is no less danger in leaving the city. The country is full of robbers. Stage-coaches are rifled on every road. The Government is powerless to protect life or property. Yet one might as well die by the robbers as be scared to death through fear of being robbed. "Faint heart never won fair lady," or any thing else.
"Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate,"
a great thing to say, if we mean all it includes, though many trip over the distich as though it were only pretty poetry.
Our point objective is Pachuca. You have heard of the silver mines of Mexico. ”

“ Though the mines of Pachuca are among the richest, there are others in the republic yet more extensive. According to Sartorius, the Valenciana, of Guanajuato, a mine that yielded its owners an annual profit of a million dollars, has shafts and adits that cost several millions, and a lofty and broad spiral path is cut through firm rock to a depth of over five hundred feet, so that troops of mules can descend into the lowest portions, in its best days it yielded annually seven hundred thousand hundred-weight of ore, and upwards of three thousand persons were employed in it. ”