"Sam": or The history of mystery./ By C. W. Webber.

"SAM:" OR, TIE HIISTORY OF MYSTERY.
singular that it should have preceded the approach of the
white man on every part of America, and that its active
effect should to this day, fortify the unexplored gold region
against his advance within its limits.
Perhaps this land, in which are, unquestionably, existent
edifices of Aztec construction, and which still hears the name
of Montezuma pronounced with reverence, may have been the
cradle of the proud conquerors who swept the Mexican plateau,
and planted there the golden empire which Cortez overthrew.
If so, in this, their last unsubdued stronghold, the light and
liberality of American enterprise may yet discover the final
dwelling-place of their history and religion, and that will be
of more worth than their glittering ores.
There is a curious Indian superstition, familiar to most of
the early Texan borderers, often told in connection with the
sad prophecy of the extinction of the red race under the
breath of white civilization. The Indians affirm that the
honey-bee always goes before the white settler to warn the
red-man to retire and yield up his hunting-grounds to the
dominion of the ax and plow. In 1820, the Indians say, the
first bees made their appearance on the Brazos and Colorado
rivers, in Texas, and five years after, Austin's settlement
arose on their banks and rendered the Indians thenceforth,
aliens and intruders on their native soil.
Before the invasion of Mexico by the Spaniards, there was
no mining science in the country, and the gold, which greatly
outbalanced the silver in quantity, was simply gathered from
or near the surface of the ground, and mostly brought by
porters from great distances in the interior of the country.
The preponderance of gold before, and of silver since the
Conquest, is readily explained by the introduction of a more
elaborate and thorough mining system. Silver is rarely
found in a pure, unmixed state on the surface, and could
only be produced, in large quantities, by the cruel and scien tific despotism of Spain. The skill, implements, and experi ence of European art, and the human force of thousands
upon thousands of the native population, were turned into
the mines, and then the ore was pursued into the bowels of
the earth by the conquerors; and numberless silver-mines,
that lay untouched and useless under the simple Aztec rule,
became immensely productive under the Spaniards. Gold
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