Hovels on the Outskirts of Copiapó
Some of the hovels near the river bank are the extremity of poverty. Any self-respecting sow in the United States would shun these shanties of mud, straw, and tin cans which here house Atacama's humblest natives. The open space in front of these hovels are littered with bones, garbage, dead rats, and excrement.
Cemetery, Copiapó
The cemetery is lugubrious, and in many a grave there is a cavity beneath the tombstone where can be seen the grinning skull of its occupant. It was founded in 1848 and a motto over the entrance denotes it as a place of peace. I cannot realize how this motto is appropriate because visitors are constantly perturbing the bones with their canes. The hook and ladder and fire engine date from 1868 but the Matriz or large church on the Plaza Arturo Prat antedates it fifty years. It is a large edifice with a square tower of New England colonial architecture. The church of San Francisco is after the style of the French Cathedral at New Orleans. Although the city has but a population of slightly over ten thousand inhabitants, it nevertheless boasts of five daily newspapers, none of which by the way are worth reading as their columns deal solely with local events such as a man stumbling on a toad and spraining his ankle, etc.
Taking a walk with Gumprecht down the railroad track we saw behind a wall a large tree laden with luscious purple figs. We climbed upon the wall to reach some when I noticed a girl driving some sheep across a trestle. I called Gumprecht's attention. He was startled thinking the owner of the quinta was coming and fell from the wall into the garden. In falling he accidentally tripped me up and I took a header in the opposite direction landing me into a bush which had prickly burrs which littered my clothing, clinging tenaciously to them. In extracting them I got my hands full of the barbed nettles which these burrs were composed of. As I fell I heard a yell from the other side of the wall and upon climbing it again saw that Gumprecht was having a lively fight with an enraged bull dog which had bitten him a couple of times. I came to his rescue with my revolver. In the meantime Gumprecht had drawn his revolver and between us we made short work with the bull dog. The shooting aroused the neighborhood and we could see farm laborers running to the scene with pitchforks. We took to our heels and finally hid by lying down in a dry irrigation ditch where we remained half an hour. When the hunt had somewhat subsided we struck out for the town by a detour but lost ourselves at a river which we forded. We started up a trail between some Kaffir corn when we suddenly came to another fig tree. When we were devouring this fruit we were caught by the owner of this quinta which was a full mile from the one where the bull dog was. We offered to pay him for it, but in excellent English he told us to help ourselves.
This man was Professor Platner, president of the Chile College of Mines whose three-story yellow institution we could see through the trees. He was a German, had lost a fortune in mining, owned a fine quinta, had lived in Copiapó for twenty-five years and was anxious to sell out and get away on account of being tired of the place. He showed us his quinta, gave us all the fruit we could eat, and revealed to us much information about the mining past and present in the province. He had installed an ore crusher on his place which he rented to miners on the percentage system. It was the Chilean process of gold extracting originated at Copiapó. There were several stone bottom tubs each holding a wheel perpendicular to the base and which is revolved by means of a large horizontal wheel which fits into grooves. The large wheel is set into motion by water power from the river. The tubs are filled with a layer of ore and the crushing begins; mercury and water are then added. The mercury and the gold form an amalgam which is carried off by a pipe into another tub along with the water. After straining, the amalgam is put into a retort which is heated at its base. The mercury escapes through a tube and is caught in a pail of water to be used again. Platner said that either gold or copper was mined according to the value of copper. When copper falls below fifty pesos a ton, gold is mined. At the time of my visit, copper was worth 112 pesos a ton.
During the colonial times the silver mines in the neighborhood of Copiapó were worked by the Spaniards, and it is said that more than twenty thousand Indians were exterminated through overwork in these mines. About four generations ago these mines became the properties of about a dozen individuals, most of whom lived in Santiago. They were worked successfully until they died. The mineral property was then divided among their heirs and when these heirs died, there were other divisions among new heirs. On account of these divisions work soon ceased. Now in order for a man to get a clean title to any of this mineral property all the heirs have to agree to the sale and there are a multitude scattered all over the world which makes getting a deed nearly impossible. There have been instances when nearly all the heirs were found and agreed to a sale only to have it held up at the last minute by one or more parties backing out. A bill is before the Chilean senate for the state to take over all mineral lands that have not been worked for fifty years; if it passes these mines will again be in operation.
Copiapó boasts of one millionaire. He lives in a ramshackle salmon-colored house of stuccoed adobe which has been cracked by an earthquake. The city is also the birthplace of Martin Rivas, the hero of Blest-Gana's novel Martin Rivas which is considered to be a classic of Spanish literature.