Giving my letters of introduction to Mr. Young, a hospitable invitation to be his guest was readily accepted. I cannot help devoting a line to the praise of a house most enjoyable in its minutest details, with a host and hostess it refreshes one’s heart to recall to memory. The lower village of Almaden consists of a long row of very pretty cottages, the residences of the workmen employed in smelting the ore; each cottage was completely buried with honeysuckle and creeping roses the gardens in front filled with flowers, and at the back with vegetables and fruit. A small stream of water, clear and cold, ripples past the frontage, brought from a mountain-burn that runs swiftly at the back, a barrier dividing the gardens from the surrounding hills. An avenue of trees leads from the cottages to the spacious brick buildings used for smelting. The discovery of these fabulously rich mines of quicksilver is briefly told. Long ere gold was discovered in California, the padres and early settlers knew of a cavern in the hillside, about a mile and a half from the present village. Deeming it merely a natural fissure or cleft in the rock, explorations only were made by the more adventurous as to its extent, which proved to be in length one hundred feet, running into the mountain horizontally. No one ever thought it was an artificial excavation of great antiquity. When the vaqueros and old dons of the neighbourhood were questioned by a new-comer about the cave, a shrug of the shoulders, and the usual reply, ‘Quien sabe? son cosas muy antiguas,’ was the sole information obtained. A gold-seeker, assaying some of the rock, salivated himself, and thus discovered it was rich in quicksilver. A grant, with the land adjoining, was procured, and the original opening widened; in clearing away the rubble and dirt at the end of the cave, several skeletons were discovered, together with rude mining-tools and other curious relics, clearly proving it an old excavation made by the natives for the purpose of procuring vermilion, so much used by all savages to paint themselves. The position of the skeletons in the rubbish covering them left no doubt that, having followed the vein of cinnabar without exercising due precaution to prop the loose ground overhead, they had been literally buried alive in a grave of their own digging. Further research soon revealed the immense value of the deposit. Many years rolled away, and very little was done until it passed from the hands of an English company into that of an American firm.