The sugar-mills in this valley are, the greater number of them, made of wood, and moved by oxen. On the larger estates small brass rollers are used; but with a single exception, on the estate of Andaguaylla, where we were concerned in erecting a water-mill for the purpose of grinding sugar-cane, the proprietors adhere to the old practice of working with oxen by day and by night throughout the year, barring accidents, and feasts or holy-days.
The beautiful hacienda or estate of Quicacan, Colonel Lucar’s, is a model of industry and method after the fashion of the country; and the most distinguished family of Echegoyen have, in Colpa-grande, the finest cane-estate, as far as we know, in the interior of Peru. It extends for nine or ten miles along the fertile banks of the river, from the city of Huanuco towards the ascents that lead into the Montaña.
Respecting Huanuco, although the principal city or capital of the department to which it belongs, we have to observe, that the consumption of its agricultural produce, as well as its own internal prosperity, depends on the mineral seat of Cerro Pasco. When the population of the Cerro rises to ten or twelve thousand, every article of Huanuco produce is in high demand; but when, from any cause, the mines are not wrought, or when these are inundated from defective drainage, and the hands employed in working them are fewer in number, the Huanuqueños and other neighbouring agriculturists are greatly discouraged or actually ruined; because, deprived of this outlet for their produce, they cannot undertake the expense of sending sugar and spirits on mules to the coast. The consequence is, that they are frequently poor in the midst of plenty; like the owners of extensive herds of sheep on the high pasture-lands, whose wool is of little value to them, as it cannot pay for mule or llama carriage to the coast; and the scanty produce of the looms of the interior have little estimation, as the ruined “obrages,” or manufactories, now amply testify. The shuttle is, moreover, nearly put at rest by the cheaper articles of warm woollen as well as cotton clothing continually introduced from the stores of our English manufacturers.
A staple article of Huanuco commerce with Cerro Pasco is the coca-leaf, from their Montaña, only distant about fifteen leagues from the city; an article of which they have several crops yearly. The indigo growers in the contiguous Montaña have, we believe, forsaken their enterprise, for want of funds to proceed with the manufacture of what, from the samples produced, was considered a good article.
Much of the fruit of the Huanuco orchards is eaten at the tables of the Pasqueños, or inhabitants of Cerro; and in the convents are made excellent sweet preserves, which are highly valued, and circulated in the surrounding country as nice and most welcome presents rather than as formal articles of commerce.
Several lands formerly belonging to convents are now appropriated as endowments of the college of Huanuco, named La Virtud Peruana, which is the only school of its kind at present open in the department of Junin. This temple of Peruvian virtue, for so the Lyceum, which was formerly a convent, has been emphatically called, was installed in May 1829, under the rectorship of Doctor Don Gregorio de Cartagena; and the writer would now desire from his native country to offer to this acute and enlightened gentleman his grateful acknowledgments for the generous hospitality of which he was himself the object, when, pilgrim and stranger as he was, he knocked at the gates of the “Temple of Peruvian Virtue.” Doctor Don Gregorio de Cartagena, jointly with his distinguished relative Doctor Don Manuel Antonio de Valdizan, has the honour of being considered the founder of this college in his native city, as we learn from the speech of Doctor Don Buena Ventura Lopez, delivered in the college chapel on the day of installation, and published, with other harangues made on the same occasion, in the periodical then commenced as the first-fruits of the Huanuco press, under the very happy title of “The Echo of the Montaña.”
In the speech of Dr. Lopez, he encourages the rising generation to take the best advantage of the new path to knowledge, virtue, and honourable distinction now freely opened to them by the meritorious exertions of two of the most eminent natives of Huanuco. He exhorts his young hearers never to forget how much they owe to these patriots and benefactors:
“And you,” says he, “fortunate young men, in possession of advantages which were denied to your forefathers, let the names of your indulgent friends Valdizan and Cartagena, coupled with the obligations of this day, sink deep into your hearts: warmed as they are with feelings of the purest delight, they will readily receive the generous impression, ay, and retain it for ever.”