turned into gray-black blocks of the size and form of a paving-brick, 85
per cent. pure, about as heavy as the average lady would care to lift,
and worth something like $1250 each. Two or four of these were tied on
the back of a donkey and a train of them driven under guard to the town
office, whence they were shipped to Mexico City, and finally made into
those elusive things called coins, or sundry articles for the
vainglorious, shipped abroad or stolen by revolutionists. On this same
ground the old colonial Spaniards used to spread the ore in a cobbled
patio, treat it with mercury, and drive mules round and round in it for
weeks until they pocketed whatever was left to them after paying the
king's fifth and the tithes of the church.

My rucksack on the back of a peon--and it is astonishing how much more
easily one's possessions carry in that fashion; as if it were indeed
that automatic baggage on legs I have long contemplated inventing--I set
off to the neighboring mine of "Peregrina." As the peon was accustomed
to carry anything short of a grand piano, he did not complain at this
half-day excursion under some twenty pounds. Being drawn out, he grew
quite cheery on this new fashion of carrying--"when the load is not
much." In the cool morning air, with a wind full of ozone sweeping
across the high country, the trail lay across tumbled stretches of rocky
ground, range behind range of mountains beyond and a ruined stone hut or
corral here and there carrying the memory back to Palestine. For a half
hour we had Guanajuato in full sight in its narrow gully far below. Many
donkeys pattered by under their loads of encinal fagots, the ragged,
expressionless drivers plodding silently at their heels.

Ahead grew the roar of "Peregrina's" stamp-mill, and I was soon winding
through the gorge-hung village. According to the manager, I had chosen
well the time of my coming, for there was "something doing." We strolled