His Trousers Are
Very Broad, And His Small Cap Of Scarlet Cloth Is Made To Fit
The Head Closely.
We met a party of these miners in full
costume, carrying the body of one of their companions to be
buried.
They marched at a very quick trot, four men supporting
the corpse. One set having run as hard as they
could for about two hundred yards, were relieved by four
others, who had previously dashed on ahead on horseback.
Thus they proceeded, encouraging each other by wild cries:
altogether the scene formed a most strange funeral.
We continued travelling northward, in a zigzag line;
sometimes stopping a day to geologize. The country was so
thinly inhabited, and the track so obscure, that we often had
difficulty in finding our way. On the 12th I stayed at some
mines. The ore in this case was not considered particularly
good, but from being abundant it was supposed the mine
would sell for about thirty or forty thousand dollars (that is,
6000 or 8000 pounds sterling); yet it had been bought by
one of the English Associations for an ounce of gold (3l.
8s.). The ore is yellow pyrites, which, as I have already
remarked, before the arrival of the English, was not supposed
to contain a particle of copper. On a scale of profits nearly
as great as in the above instance, piles of cinders, abounding
with minute globules of metallic copper, were purchased;
yet with these advantages, the mining associations, as is well
known, contrived to lose immense sums of money. The folly
of the greater number of the commissioners and shareholders
amounted to infatuation; - a thousand pounds per annum
given in some cases to entertain the Chilian authorities;
libraries of well-bound geological books; miners brought out
for particular metals, as tin, which are not found in Chile;
contracts to supply the miners with milk, in parts where
there are no cows; machinery, where it could not possibly
be used; and a hundred similar arrangements, bore witness
to our absurdity, and to this day afford amusement to the
natives. Yet there can be no doubt, that the same capital
well employed in these mines would have yielded an immense
return, a confidential man of business, a practical
miner and assayer, would have been all that was required.
Captain Head has described the wonderful load which
the "Apires," truly beasts of burden, carry up from the
deepest mines. I confess I thought the account exaggerated:
so that I was glad to take an opportunity of weighing one
of the loads, which I picked out by hazard. It required
considerable exertion on my part, when standing directly over
it, to lift it from the ground. The load was considered under
weight when found to be 197 pounds. The apire had carried
this up eighty perpendicular yards, - part of the way by
a steep passage, but the greater part up notched poles, placed
in a zigzag line up the shaft. According to the general
regulation, the apire is not allowed to halt for breath, except
the mine is six hundred feet deep.
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