Mr Porter and Miss Caystile, who was teaching school at the time and was attending the meeting, spent the night and most of two subsequent nights, in efforts to comfort and console the bereaved parents; le observed that she was thinking solely of the sufferers, and not at all of herself. The young woman. is now Mrs Porter, one most devoted to her husband, her children, and her household, possessed of all womanly graces, and with a just contempt for the inane frivolities of society.

In the company of these children, George Keating and Estelle, in the company of his wife, of his books, and at times of a chosen circle of friends, Mr Porter enjoys the scanty leisure that remains to him from his twelve or fifteen hours of daily toil. Though probably he will never retire altogether from business, he intends erelong so to arrange his affairs that in his declining years they will require less of his personal attention. His life has indeed been a busy one, an up-hill struggle with difficulties, such as none can understand save those who have encountered them, and none could have encountered but one gifted with his marvellous physique, his tireless energy, and his phenomenal capacity for work.

To many of my readers Mr Porter's appearance is already familiar, his expressive and intellectual features, his kindly, light blue eyes, his dark brown hair, his robust and sturdy frame, with its five feet ten inches of stature. In gait and carriage erect and dignified, in manner pleasing and affable, in conversation forcible, speaking always to the point in simple, apt, and well-chosen phrase, the reputation which he now enjoys is due no less to his personal character, his personal magnetism, his qualities of mind and heart, than to the uniform success that has attended his business career.

A self-made man, Mr Porter is also a self-educated man, acquiring the more valuable part of his education from his own reading, and that after his daily

task was accomplished, devoting, as he says, to study much of the time that others gave to sleep. Starting in life without other advantages than the strength of mind and muscle and principle, the endurance and will-power acquired by inheritance and training, he landed on these shores in early youth, without a friend, and almost without a dollar. For years he struggled to little purpose, his efforts baffled and his toil but ill requited. At length came success, slowly indeed but surely, success not only for himself, but for the industry of which he was the founder, one that now furnishes employment to thousands of operatives, and retains on this coast many millions a year of capital. In the truest sense of the word may he be termed a builder of the commonwealth, for to such men is due the rank accorded to California as the first among the sisterhood of states in relative wealth, and in all the elements of greatness and prosperity.

CHAPTER XXV.

MANUFACTURES-MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA.

THE PRIMARY TEST OF CIVILIZATION-INDIAN WORK-CLOTHING, COOKING UTENSILS, ORNAMENTS, AND WEAPONS IMPROVEMENT IN COTTON FABRICS--THE SILK INDUSTRY-NAHUA METAL AND OBSIDIAN WORKS -POTTERY, BASKETS, AND CLOTHS-TANNING AND LEATHER WORK— DYEING PRECIOUS STONES AND SILVER WORK-MANUFACTURES OF THE MAYAS--COMING OF THE SPANIARDS-INTRODUCTION OF EUROPEAN INDUSTRIES-MODIFICATIONS AND DEVELOPMENTS.

THE development of a nation's agricultural products will necessarily, under favorable circumstances, give an impulse to its manufacturing industry, though it may be only for the purpose of increasing national consumption. Nations acquire prominence, wealth, and power by the advancement of their combined industries, and this fact is made manifest in the relative positions held by them in modern times. Still manufactures are not merely an industry of the present. They have flourished since the earliest times recorded in history, though the great advance of mechanics science in the present century has developed them to a wonderful degree. But whatever is made by hand or by machinery, however simple, comes under the denomination of manufacture. Even the humblest among uncivilized peoples have felt the need of implements for defence, and for the protection of the person from the inclemency of the weather. Weapons for war and hunting, and traps to catch animals for food, were followed by other inventions, such as utensils for cooking and various purposes; next came the improvements in covering for the person, and finally for ornamentation. Necessity and the

desire of possessing conveniences as well as vanity set ingenuity to work, with results developed in time and as circumstances required.

The manufactures of the wild tribes of Mexico were of the most primitive character. The Lower Californians, as well as the people inhabiting Sonora, Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Durango, Nuevo Leon, and the northern portions of Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí, and Tamaulipas, had shown themselves possessed of but little ingenuity, their products being limited to a few implements, wicker-baskets, weapons of war and hunting, and articles to cover or ornament their bodies. Reeds, fibres, rushes, skins, feathers, wood, motherof-pearl, etc., were the materials mostly used. Some of the tribes made petticoats of soft chamois, or of cotton, or of the agave fibre, while the Ceri women fashioned them from the skins of the albatross or pelican with the feathers inside. Most of the tribes manufactured ornaments of mother-of-pearl, white snails' shells, fruit-stones, copper and silver hoops, circlets of deer's hoofs, necklaces of red beans, or strings of paroquets and small birds.

Northern and southern Mexicans made their weapons in most respects in the same fashion. They had bows, arrows, macanas, and lances, the last of great length and very strong. In Tabasco they made highly polished turtle-shell shields. The hard wooden sword of the Maya was a heavy and formidable weapon, and had its edge grooved to insert the sharp flint with which it was supplied. The Mayas also had for defensive armor garments of thickly quilted cotton called ercaupiles. The flint knife of former days has been replaced by the serviceable machete which is a cutlass and a chopping-knife in one. natives of Tabasco and Yucatan also manufactured pots of earthenware and gourds. Iron was unknown to the Mayas, but they had crucibles for melting copper, and copper hatchets, and spear and arrow points as well as ornaments, made of the same metal.

The

The inhabitants of Tabasco and the coast of Yucatan possess canoes made from the single trunk of a mahogany tree, which they navigate with small lateen sails and paddles. The Zoques make excellent hammocks from the ixtle and pita thread.

The Nahuas, a civilized people dwelling in the valley of Anáhuac, had attained a high degree of perfection in manufactures. They displayed great skill in ornamental work of gold, silver, fine stones, pearls, and feathers. Several minerals, such as quicksilver, sulphur, alum, and ochre were to some extent used in the preparation of colors and for other purposes. Iron, though abundant in Mexico, was not used. Much skill was manifested in melting and casting, also in carving, and in the use of the hammer. How the harder metals were melted has not come down to us, other than the appliance of a rude blow-pipe and furnace in detaching gold from other substances mixed with it in the natural state. Copper, the only metal used for cutting, was hardened with tin, until it sufficed to cut hard substances almost as well as steel. The pure and softer copper was wrought into kettles and other vessels. Copper tools, mostly in the form of axes and chisels, though not so common as those of stone, were employed where a sharp and enduring edge was needed.

In speaking of the agricultural implements used by the Aztecs, mention was made of their sticks tipped with copper. No metal was used to any extent in weapons; none was found in swords or arrow-heads, but it was employed with obsidian in spear heads and clubs. The old chroniclers speak of the existence of copper and tin plates, but they certainly were not common. Copper and tin instruments were wrought with stone hammers, not cast. According to Clavigero copper and tin vessels were gilded with a preparation of certain herbs, but the Spaniards never discovered the process.