Oroya is the mining-centre for all this district and is the outlet for Cerro de Pasco. It used to be a vastly interesting trip by the highway from Oroya to Cerro de Pasco, and the interest is not greatly lessened now that the American syndicate which controls the copper and silver mines has built a railway 87 miles long. The railroad follows the cañon for 15 miles, and then strikes across the great level plain, or pampa, of Junin, which it leaves at the foothills in order to climb up to Cerro de Pasco. The elevation of this mining-town is 14,200 feet.
A pyramid on this plain catches the eye, and the inquiry is made as to its significance. It is the historic monument marking the last battle between the Spanish forces and the patriots in the war for Independence. The town of Junin near the lake of the same name, while it is one of mud huts and grass-thatched dwellings, is clean and pleasing in appearance.
Pyramid of Junin
I never met quite so many weather changes as were encountered in riding across this pampa of Junin. We were in the midst of clouds so thick that they wet us through. Just ahead was a broad level of sunlight, and beyond that a driving snow-storm, and we found the sunlight and the snow exactly as they had appeared. There was a hail-storm which we also saw ahead of us. When it was pelting us, we could look back and through the snow see the sunlit plain and then the violet mantle of the clouds.
Cerro de Pasco is a cold place, but the Montana people who are engaged in developing the mines say that they like the climate, and they compare it approvingly to that of their own State. Heretofore the silver output has been the great source of the wealth of this region. It is a story of the romance of always romantic mining history. It was in 1630 that an Indian shepherd, having made a fire to cook his humble meal and warm his hands, found the stones covered with silver threads. That was the beginning of the silver mining, and since then 450,000,000 ounces are known to have been taken out. The quantity was probably much larger, because the Spanish tax of one-fifth was so heavy that it put a premium on evading it. The American capitalists who invested in the Cerro de Pasco region did so chiefly with the purpose of developing the copper deposits. By the burros and other pack animals the freight for the copper ore down to the railway at Oroya amounted to $40 per ton. That is why the first move of the Americans was to build the railway to connect Cerro de Pasco with Oroya. The coal outcroppings also gave encouragement that the smelters which were erected could secure cheap fuel. The money actually paid out in buying the mining properties and in building the railway was understood to be $8,000,000. The probability is that at the present time the cash investment is not less than $10,000,000, and the capitalists are considering another outlay to the amount of $15,000,000, to build a railway paralleling the Oroya road down to the coast, unless the London directors of the Peruvian Corporation make satisfactory traffic arrangements for freighting the copper and the bullion turned over to their line.
Should the yet untouched mineral wealth of the Cerro de Pasco district prove a fraction of what the mining-experts have declared it to be, the output of ore will be only in its initial stages when the interoceanic canal is opened and the advantages of this route are set off against the long course around Cape Horn to Liverpool or New York. American private enterprise in the heart of the Andes will respond to American national enterprise on the Isthmus of Panama, and the pleasing historic memories of Lima will be blended with the more pleasing prospect of the Cordilleras’ contribution to the material progress of Peru and her people.
CHAPTER VII
AREQUIPA AND LAKE TITICACA
Capital of Southern Peru—Through the Desert to the Coast—Crescent Sand-hills—A Mirage—Down the Cañon—Quilca as a Haven of Unrest—Arequipa Again—Religious Institutions—Prevalence of Indian Race—Wool and Other Industries—Harvard Observatory—Railroading over Volcanic Ranges—Mountain Sickness at High Crossing—Branch Line toward Cuzco—Inambari Rubber Regions—Puno on the Lake Shore.