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Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) - A Record of Five Years' Exploration Among the Tribes of the Western Sierra Madre; In the Tierra Caliente of Tepic and Jalisco; and Among the Tarascos of Michoacan by Carl Lumholtz
page 109 of 444 (24%)
The cave is situated about twenty-five miles in a straight line south
of the Mormon colony of Chuhuichupa. There are indications of a spring
in the cave, and there is another one in the arroyo itself. The
buildings are in a very bad condition, owing to the action of the
elements and animals; but fifty-three rooms could be counted. They were
located on a rocky terrace extending from the extreme right to the
rear centre of the cave. This extreme right extended slightly beyond
the overhanging cliff, and contained groups of two-storied houses. In
the central part of the cave were a number of small structures, built
of the same material and in a similar manner as those I described
as granaries in Cave Valley. They were still in excellent condition,
and, as will be seen at a glance, they are almost identical with the
granaries used to the present day in some southern States of Mexico.

We continued our descent, and, having dropped altogether some 2,000
feet, at last found ourselves alongside some lonely and unattractive
old adobe houses. They were built by the Spaniards and are reputed
to have once been the smelter of the now abandoned silver mine of
Guaynopa. Only the naked walls remain standing on a decline, which
was too steep to give us sufficient camping ground. So we went still a
little further, to the top of a hill near by, where we made a tolerably
good camp.

This then was the famous locality of Guaynopa, credited with hiding
such fabulous wealth. There was still another mine here of the same
repute, called Tayopa, and both of them are said to have been worked
once by the Jesuits, who before their expulsion from Mexico were
in possession of nearly all the mines in the country. According to
tradition, the Apaches killed everybody here, and the mines were
forgotten until recent times, when ancient church records and other
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