Every department of Honduras possesses more or less mineral wealth, and within the limits of the country almost every metal known to man is found. The discoveries of gold and silver were made by the aborigines, who possessed much treasure when the Spaniards conquered them, and ever since the Conquest the mines have been worked with great profit; but their development was greater under the viceroys than since the independence of the republic, as this branch of industry has suffered more from civil wars than any other. As a consequence, mine after mine has been abandoned, and the districts where the best mineral deposits exist are marked with depopulated towns and villages. [Illustration: UP THE RIVER.] The lack of roads renders it impossible to transport machinery to the mining districts. The mines are seldom worked to any depth, and the waste is enormous. But even under this system, rude and primitive as it is, much wealth has been acquired, and millions of dollars in silver and gold have been taken out annually for hundreds of years. Of late a good deal of attention has been given to the Honduras mines by American experts, and much capital has been invested in purchasing and prospecting them, but the hope of realizing upon the investment lies in the improvement of transportation facilities, for nothing that cannot be carried on the back of a mule can either reach the mines or come from them. And imported labor is quite as necessary, as the native of Honduras cannot be induced to do anything in other than the way to which he has been accustomed, and looks upon labor-saving machinery as the invention of the evil one. [Illustration: A MINING SETTLEMENT.] The city of Tegucigalpa, the commercial metropolis and the actual capital of the country, stands upon both banks of the Rio Cholutica in an amphitheatre of mountains, and has twelve thousand inhabitants. The river is spanned and the two divisions of the town connected by an ancient bridge with some fine arches of stone. The suburb is called Comayaguaita (Little Comayagua). The streets are well paved, in the same manner as other Spanish American cities, with a gutter in the centre, to which they slope from both sides. This gutter is always full of weeds and dust and filth, but seldom of water; and although the hills which half surround the city are full of running streams, with a fall sufficient to force water to the tower of the cathedral, it has never occurred to the inhabitants to utilize them. Every drop of water used for any purpose in the city is carried, in an earthen jar on the top of some woman’s head, from the river at the bottom of a gorge a hundred feet deep. [Illustration: VIEW IN NICARAGUA.]