310

STREAMS, LAKE YURIRAPUNDARO, CLIMATE, EFFECT OF really merits this name in the State, and crosses the southern portion of it for near 35 leagues. The river Laja and the river Turbio are of less consequence; and all the other streams, though generally known among the people of these districts by the dignified title of rivers, scarcely merit a higher position among the fluvial characteristics of the State than brooks or mountain torrents, which only obtain real consideration when they are swollen by heavy rains. The lake of Yurirapúndaro, is the only one which belongs to this State; it is four leagues long by one and a half in width, and embosoms several islands. Its sweet waters are filled with small fish, which are taken daily by the Indians, for the markets of the neighborhood and the capital, but its actual depth is unknown.

The climate of Guanajuato is genial, its sky nearly always clear, and its atmosphere pure. Owing to its site, immediately north of the torrid zone, the inhabitants do not suffer the extremes of heat or cold. Elevated about 8,000 feet above the level of the sea, its rarefied atmosphere counteracts the direct rays of the sun, so that its mean temperature is 21° of the centigrade thermometer, whilst it never exceeds 28° in the months between April and June, which are generally reckoned the warmest in this part of the Republic. During this season the rain usually begins to fall, and lowers the temperature agreeably. The north wind prevails during the greater part of the year; yet near the period of the annual rains it changes for a while to the south, bringing with it an abundance of moist vapor to fertilize the soil. Nothing is sadder for the people of Guanajuato and the adjacent States than to find, as sometimes happens, the months passing without this customary change of wind. In such years the crops fail; the prices of grain consequently rise, and the poor classes suffer extremely. The year 1786, is known in the annals of this region, as one well remembered still for the famine that prevailed in consequence of a severe frost that occurred on the 28th of the preceding August, blighting the prospects of the farmer, and carrying off 8,000 victims in the capital and the adjacent mines alone. In the month of May agriculture often suffers from violent hail storms that prostrate the young grain which at this season of the year is usually extremely dry in consequence of the early heats and the want of irrigation.

The mild and pure climate of Guanajuato renders it a healthy residence. In its southern part, about Salvatierra and Yurirapúndaro, intermittent fevers, called los frios, or agues, occasionally prevail. Dropsy, rheumatism, common fever, and dysenteries, which usually sweep off large numbers of Mexicans, are milder and more

MALADIES

PRODUCTIONS-VINE-OLIVE.

311

easily treated in this region than in other portions of the Republic. The laborers in the mines formerly suffered from diseases of the chest, arising probably from the mephitic vapors which were confined in the badly ventilated galleries; but the Deputacion de la Mineria took this subject into consideration, and have forced the owners of mines by stringent laws to construct shafts and openings by which these buried workmen may receive continual supplies of fresh air.

Maize, wheat, frijoles, beans, and the common cereal grains are produced abundantly in the fertile plains of the Bajio and San Felipe. Corn, though the chief product for consumption, not only for man but for beasts, is often so abundant, that the farmers are obliged to export it to other States. The quality of the wheat of this State is so excellent, that when it will bear the cost of transportation, it is sent to the national capital, where it commands a better price than even the grain raised in the immediate vicinity of the city. The frijol, a fine dark, nutritious bean, which is commonly used throughout Mexico, by all classes, from the highest to the lowest,-grows abundantly in Guanajuato. The Chile pepper is used in Mexico, not only as a seasoning for food as in other countries, but as an aliment of life, which is placed on tables of all ranks at dinner. It is consumed both in its green and dry states, and in the latter, it is exported from Guanajuato to the capital, where the product of the haciendas or plantations at Apaseo are preferred by the epicures as being of the best flavor in the Republic. The vine, is also cultivated in various parts of this State, especially at Dolores Hidalgo, Celaya, and Chamacuero, but as manufactories of wine have not been established, its culture does not extend beyond the quantity of grapes required for consumption in the markets. The potato does not flourish in this State.

It is believed that the olive may be advantageously reared in Guanajuato. At the beginning of the present century, Joaquin Gutierrez de los Rios made the experiment at his hacienda de Sarabia, within the district of Salamanca. The scarcity and dearness of oil in Spain, at that period, in consequence of the war, enabled the mill established by this person to supply the neighborhood with the article at such prices, that the lucky proprietor realized a large income from his enterprize. But during the insurrection in 1810, his property was destroyed, and with it, a large part of his olive plantation. At present, considerable plantations are making at several haciendas, especially at that of Mendoza, where 30,000 olive trees had been already planted in 1849.

The State of Guanajuato is divided into four departments or prefectures 1st. San Miguel de Allende; 2d. Leon; 3d. Guanajuato; 4th Celaya; whose capitals or chief towns bear the same names. The possession by this State of the great and celebrated Veta Madre which passes nearly through its centre, and of the wide and prolific plains of the Bajio and of San Felipé renders it equally valuable as a mining and agricultural region, and divides it fairly between the two branches of industry. Its population may be estimated at about 560,000; twenty-five per cent. of which comprises the whites, thirty-six per cent. the mixed races, and thirty-nine per cent. the Indian. Guanajuato contains three cities, four markettowns, thirty-seven villages, and four hundred and fifty estates, plantations and farms.

"En

now

The capital of the State is the city of GUANAJUATO, or Santa Fé de Guanajuato, situated in 21° 0' 15" north latitude and 103° 15' west longitude from Paris, about 6,869 feet above the level of the sea, according to the measurement of Burkhart, and containing between 35,000 and 40,000 inhabitants. The town is perhaps the most curiously picturesque and remarkable in the republic. tering a rocky Cañada," says a recent traveller, "the bottom of which barely affords room for a road, you pass between high adobe walls, above which, up the steep, rise tier above tier of blank, windowless, sun-dried houses, looking as if they had grown out of the earth. You would take them to be a sort of cubic crystallization of the soil. Every corner of the windings of the road is filled with buildings of mining companies- huge fortresses of stone, ramparted as if for defence. The scene varies with every moment;you look up to a church with purple dome and painted towers; now the blank adobe walls, with here and there a spiry cypress or graceful palm between them, rise far above you, along the steep ledges of the mountain; and again the mountain itself, with its waste of rock and cactus, is all you see. The Cañada, finally seems to close. A precipice of rock, out of a rift in which the stream flows, shuts the passage. Ascending this by a twist in the road you are in the heart of the city. Lying partly in the narrow bed of the ravine and partly on its sides and in its lateral branches, it is only by mounting to some higher eminence that one can realize its extent and position. At the further end of the city the mountains form a cul de sac. The Cañada is a blind passage which can only be left by the road you came. The streets are narrow, crooked, and run up and down in all directions, and there is no room for plazas or alamedas. A little triangular space in front of the cathe