This very unwholesome and improper custom has ceased in Lima since the erection of its Pantheon, and the example of the great capital has been followed in the remote departments. With few, if any, exceptions, cemeteries are now formed in all the provinces of Junin. But in Cerro Pasco, however, the burying-place was so very circumscribed and neglected, that, on the arrival of Don Francisco Quiros as chief of the department in the year 1832, there was not earth enough to cover the dead within the Pantheon walls, which altogether presented a very loathsome appearance. He caused the cemetery to be sufficiently enlarged, so that there should be nothing to render this place of rest offensive. Indeed, he expresses himself strongly on the urgency there was for the execution of this work: and though the stinted flowers of Pasco common do not always furnish a supply of fresh blossoms to be daily renewed over the graves of the departed,—and though no acacia, cypress, nor willow, no yew nor myrtle, can endure its elevated site,—Mr. Quiros enjoys the praise and the pleasure of having raised, in this inclement region of silver beds, a place of rest for his countrymen, which not even avarice can disturb; and glad would he be to see the children of the deceased steal to the graves of their fathers, there to pray over the remains of their kindred, and thus habitually cherish feelings of piety, humility, and hope.[15]
ROADS OF JUNIN.
Regarding the roads of the Sierra in general, enough has been said in the preceding pages; but of Junin, in particular, it remains for us to observe that very laudable efforts have been lately made for improving the roads of this department: yet no regular post-houses, with suitable accommodations for the traveller, are anywhere established; and the communication between the more remote provinces and Pasco is exceedingly bad. This is a great hinderance to commerce, and leads to inevitable delay and inconvenience in the transport of goods. However discreditable the fact may be to the corporation of miners, so little enterprise have they shown for the improvement of a place from which so much specie has been sent all over the world, that it is not without great difficulty, and loss of time and cattle, that they are able to convey the ore from the mines to the mills in the environs of Cerro; and all because of the miserable tracks which they use as roads. By the stream of Sacrafamilia alone, in the immediate neighbourhood of the mines, there are no fewer than eighty-eight ingenios or mills for grinding ore, some of which during the dry season are at a stand-still on account of the scarcity of water, and others at all seasons are interrupted in their work from the irregular supply of ore consequent on the bad means of conveyance. To obviate these great drawbacks on the industry of the miners, and general resources of the department, the prefect, some time since, commenced a cart-road, over which the ore might be conducted by oxen from the mines to the mills specified, through a tract neither extensive nor precipitous; but the undertaking was a great and a novel one for that part of the world in the year 1833, so little had such works of general advantage hitherto called up the attention and energies of the inhabitants.
POSTS.
The inhabitants of Cerro Pasco have the advantage of a weekly post between their town and the capital of the republic; and a direct correspondence twice a month with Huanuco, the capital of the department. By these arrangements an immediate communication is also held with the government, and the spirit of mercantile enterprise is thereby increased; Cerro being, as the reader may readily imagine, when the mines are highly productive, a most stirring place, visited by men of all climes, and full of traffic and speculation.
PUBLIC TREASURY AT PASCO.
The prefects in general are, as we have seen, not only entrusted with the maintenance of public order and security, but they are also at the head of financial affairs in their respective departments. In times of intestine warfare it has always happened that the Patriot government has exceeded the natural resources of the country, crippled as they are in all their branches by want of security, and consequently of capital. Thus there were, at the commencement of the year 1834 particularly, heavy arrears owing to the army, navy, and civil list. The supplies from the mint and custom-house were deeply pledged for sums advanced to the government; demands for payments, beyond what they could liquidate, were made upon the local treasuries of all the departments:[16] and the treasury of Junin had to bear its share of all the demands of a needy government. By the report of the prefect to the departmental junta, of session 1833, it appears that, while in office for the previous year, he removed several abuses, regulated the accounts, and struck a fair balance of the ingress and egress of the Pasco treasury. He does not, however, state the amount of the departmental funds in this report, or present any data by which we are to form an estimate of the separate or aggregate revenue arising from the different provinces. All data of this sort the Patriot government is deficient in; and the real rental of the state can hardly at any time be clearly ascertained. A natural result of this fundamental defect in their statistics is, that, not knowing the precise extent of the population or pecuniary resources of the departments, the annual contributions cannot be laid in a well-regulated and just proportion to the means of each town, parish, and province. The difficulties and obscurities in which every branch of the public revenue, and especially of his own department, was involved, led the prefect of Junin publicly to declare his doubts concerning the integrity of the officers of the executive intrusted with the collection of imposts; and he broadly hints, that, in gratifying their self-love and interest, they forget the higher duties of the citizen. He therefore exhorts the honourable junta to discountenance all favouritism, to exercise a stern patriotism, and by fair inquiry to resolve the important questions,—namely, Whether or not more be annually exacted of the provinces than they, without injury to themselves or the state, have the power to contribute? Whether or not they do really pay more than can be legitimately required of them?
OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.
Justice, in all the departments, is administered in the name of the republic; and in every town there are justices of the peace, whose business it is to hear both sides of the question at issue, and to endeavour to bring about an amicable termination without going formally to law: no demand, civil or criminal, save fiscal cases and others excepted by law, being admitted, unless this essential preliminary attempt at reconciliation has been put into practice.