At the mouth of the great mine, called the King’s mine,—“La mina del Rey,”—which rendered the family of Yjura so famous and so wealthy,—a labourer has been known in our own day to refuse eighty dollars for his mantada, which abounded in pieces of polvorilla and maciza, or ore rich in native and nearly pure silver. Native and massive silver is, however, necessarily rare, and only occurs in small and scattered portions among other metals of good quality. The better the quality of the ore, so much greater is the damage and loss from robbery sustained by the mine and master miner; and it often happens that the cost of raising the ore, extracting the silver, paying government and local duties, the repair of the underground works, supply of salt and quicksilver, together with all the expense of major-domos, and wear and tear of mining utensils, loss on cargo-mules and llamas, &c. exceed the whole returns of the mine. Hence, we have known a most intelligent, active, and distinguished master miner of Pasco, four or five of whose mines yielded mostly all the rich ore extracted from that mineral in the years 1827 and 1828, declare that, after having put about two millions of dollars in circulation from the produce of these mines, he himself was rather a loser than a gainer, notwithstanding such abundant returns.
The number of mines at Cerro usually at work since they have fallen into the hands of the Patriots are comparatively few: though in the different districts or sections of this place, known under the names Santa Rosa, Yauricocha, Caya, Yanacancha, Cheupimarca, and Matagente, there are several hundred well-known mines from which silver has been, and yet may be, plentifully dug out, provided a perfect drainage should ever be effected. The mines of late actually productive in Cerro Pasco may be said generally to amount to about thirty in number, and to be at work for about eight months in the year. Some of these are of course of inferior quality; but the metals which, by assay or experiment on the small scale, only yield six or seven marcs per cajon or box, (the marc being eight ounces, and the cajon twenty-five mules’ load of ten arrobes, or two hundred and fifty pounds each,) are found to be worth the working, provided the ore be not very difficult to extract, either on account of the character of the vein, or the depth of the workings. The metals of Santa Rosa, when they yield ten marcs of silver per cajon, and when quicksilver is at a moderate price, pay the miner better than richer ores, because they do not tempt the cupidity of the labourers, who are therefore contented with the fixed sum of four reals wages per day, instead of the mantadas or bundles of metal already mentioned.
These mantadas are purchased by a class of men called bolicheros, or owners of boliches. This boliche is, to the common grinding-mills on the mine-estates or haciendas, what the hand-mill of the Israelites was to the modern corn-mills moved by machinery: it is a kind of rocking-stone, placed on the concave surface of a larger stone well accommodated underneath. Metal, in comparatively small quantities, is ground between these two stones by a man who, with the help of a long pole, balances himself on the upper roundish and heavy stone, which by the weight and motion of his own body he keeps rocking incessantly. The metal, or ore, thus ground, is the very richest; poor or ordinary ore could not pay on this small scale: but the ore bought of the labouring miners usually enriches the bolichero, who, tempted by the prospects of a ready fortune, does not hesitate to encourage the thieving practices complained of in the departmental report of our friend the prefect of Junin, himself a native of Cerro Pasco.
The town of Cerro Pasco—of which the very “adobes,” or unburnt bricks, partly used in some of the houses, contain silver—is itself so burrowed under, that one is really in no small danger of inadvertently, and especially at night, falling into old mines, or rather pits,—sometimes superficial, sometimes deep and fathomless, and half filled with water. The mines are irregularly wrought under ground; and the experienced hands burrow like rabbits through holes not commonly known, and so come at rich metals by stealth, to be immediately exchanged for dollars at the bolicheros. The best way to prevent such plunder would be to prohibit boliches. While this species of robbery goes on, Cerro Pasco, though removed from the sphere of the earthquakes that infest the coast, is in risk of being swallowed up by the falling-in of the arches of the mines, supported on pillars frequently consisting of rich ore. The thieves pilfer from these pillars, and so weaken the supports of the whole underground fabric, that now and then entire arches fall in, sometimes producing a sacrifice of lives or other disastrous consequences.
We see the Pasco miners always in the midst of riches, and always embarrassed: they are kept in a state of continued tantalization. The miner, it is true, sometimes has immense and rapid gains, in spite of rogues and plunderers everywhere about him, at comparatively little expense of time or money; and this occasional success leads others to indulge in a hope of similar good fortune, which hurries the majority of speculators in this channel into pecuniary difficulties: for, as we have seen, the necessary outlay is often great without any compensation; and when the capital is too limited, though in the main the undertaking be a good one, ruin is near. Shopkeepers and dealers in plata-piña are tempted, by prospects of commercial advantage, to lend money to the harassed mine-owner to enable him to forward his works, and to repay the loan in piña[2] at so much per marc. Such a lender is called “habilitador:” but it unluckily happens for this capitalist that, by the custom and usage of the miner, the last “habilitador” has a claim to be first paid, which leads to the worst practical results. The miner is generally a reckless gambler, who spends money as fast as it comes to him, not in improving his mines, but in indulging his vices; and in this manner the interest of the first habilitadors may be successively postponed to the claims of the most recent, who frequently is disappointed in his turn; while the difficulties of the miner are not removed, but merely prolonged, and he is involved in everlasting disputes and litigation.
The risk, expense, and delay occasioned at all times, and more particularly in days of civil broil, by the necessity of forwarding the bars of silver from Pasco to Lima for the purpose of coinage, are felt as so many real grievances by the miner; and it is known that these causes, with the desire to avoid the payment of the established duties, have led to a contraband trade across the by-ways of the mountains to the coast, which no number of custom-house officers could prevent, even on the extravagant supposition of their being proof against bribery and corruption. The evils attendant on the existing arrangements led the legislature to pass a law for the establishment of a mint at the mines of Pasco; but this desirable object has not yet been carried into effect in a proper and efficient manner, though we understood that the prefect Quiros employed a native tradesman to erect some rude machinery by which a few hundred dollars were thrown off daily.
An extract from a memoir presented in the year 1832 to the congress in Lima by Mr. Tudela, the Peruvian minister of “Hacienda” or home affairs, may give an idea of the returns of the mines. “To animate mining industry,” says he, “one most essential thing is the convenient supply of quicksilver, with which our metals are generally extracted from their ores; because smelting is not suited for the greater number of these, neither is it used for those ores to the refining of which it is adapted.[3] The price of the quicksilver determines the profit or loss on the poorer metals; and neither exemption from duties of cobos[4] and tithes, nor any other protection which the law dispenses to the mining corporation, compensate for the expense of this article.
“In Huancavelica, Peru possesses one of the richest quicksilver mines on earth,—a mine which comprehends forty-one hills, examined and found intersected with veins, of which one part alone, that of Saint Barbara, called the “Great,” yielded five thousand quintals of quicksilver per annum for two centuries. It was, therefore, a matter of importance to inquire if it could be conveniently worked; and it has been found that, with moderate support and certain arrangements, quicksilver may be procured at sixty-five dollars per quintal.[5]