The Finance Ministry, which was just opposite when we first came, where Limantour created and guided the infant steps of Mexican finance (_le premier pas qui coûte_), is now converted into the Police Bureau. There are always a lot of people--women, children, young men and old--all in some kind of trouble, standing or sitting on the curve in the most picturesque combinations. It makes the street very human, almost too human, when lawbreakers are brought to justice in the night hours. _August 20th._ Two days ago N. met a man who knows all about your Avino mines, but nothing consoling. It is a splendid property, but had the misfortune to be exploited by one of the canniest of men. One, however, who didn't lie awake nights worrying about the investors, and who ruined it, as far as the investors are concerned, by always getting in new machinery, he taking the commissions on the machinery, which was easier and quicker than getting the ore out. The mining history of Mexico is romantic in the way Eastern tales of gleaming treasure are--a simple rubbing of Aladdin's lamp in many cases--and certainly her national destinies have been molded by the precious stores that her mountains hold. Some of the historic mines were so rich that the veins could be worked by bars with a point at one end and a chisel at the other, simply prying out the silver, _sans autre forme de procès_! The famous Bueno Suceso Mine in Sonora was discovered by an Indian who swam across the river after a great flood and found the crest of an immense lode laid bare by the action of the water--a pure, massive hump sparkling in the rays of the sun. I told you of the Conde de Regla's mine, the celebrated Real del Monte at Pachuca and the wealth beyond the dreams of avarice that it brought in. He began life as a _muletier_ by the name of Terreros, and ended by being able to lend the King of Spain a million _pesos_. The mines of Catorce were discovered by a negro fiddler, who, caught out by the darkness on his way home over the mountain, built a fire on what happened to be a bare vein. The morning sun showed molten bits of pure silver glistening among the embers. It's all rather upsetting, collectively and individually. Padre Flores, a poor priest in a little town in this same San Luis Potosí, bought, for a small sum, from some one still poorer, a mining claim. When exploring it he came upon a small cavern which he straightway named "the purse of God," for in it he found great heaps of ore in a state of decomposition! The Morelos Mine was discovered by two Indians, brothers, so poor that the night before they could not even buy a little corn for tortillas. Any Indian could dream this dream going over any mountain.