Wherever we wandered in this fascinating city, our eyes continually turned southward to the Cerro, the beautifully colored cone that raises itself fifteen hundred feet above the city. It is impossible to describe adequately the beauty of its colors and the marvellous way in which they change as the sun sinks behind the western Andes. I hope that some day a great painter will come here and put on canvas the marvellous hues of this world-renowned hill. Pink, purple, lavender, brown, gray, and yellow streaks make it look as though the gods, having finished painting the universe, had used this as a dumping-ground for their surplus pigments. In reality, the hand of man has had much to do with its present variegated aspect, for he has been busily engaged during the past three hundred years in turning the hill inside out. Much of the most beautifully colored material has been painfully brought out from
the very heart of the hill through long tunnels, in man’s effort to get at the rich veins of silver and tin which lie within.
The discovery of silver at Potosí was made by a llama driver about the middle of the sixteenth century. It was soon found that the mountain was traversed by veins of extremely rich ore. After the gold of the Incas had been gathered up and disposed of, Potosí became the most important part of all the Spanish possessions in America. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, when New York and Boston were still undreamed of, Potosí was already a large and extremely wealthy city. It attracted the presence of hundreds of Spanish adventurers including many grandees. In short it had taken on all the signs of luxury that are common to big mining camps. Grandees in sumptuous apparel rode gayly caparisoned horses up and down the stony streets, bowing graciously to charming ladies dressed in the most costly attire that newly-gotten wealth could procure. On feast days, and particularly on great national holidays, like the King’s birthday, elaborate and expensive entertainments were given.
If it were not for the great expanse of ruins and the very large number of churches, it would be difficult to realize to-day that for over a century this was the largest city in the Western Hemisphere. The routes which led to the Bolivian plateau became the greatest thoroughfares in America. Money flowed more freely than water. In fact, the Spaniards found great difficulty during the dry season in supplying the city with sufficient water to use in washing the ore and in meeting the ordinary needs of a large population. Consequently, they went up into the hills above the city and built, at great expense, a score of dams to hold back the water that fell during the rainy season and preserve it for the dry.
Immediately following the Wars of Independence and the consequent opening of the country to foreign capital, a wild mining fever set in among London capitalists. Greedy and ignorant directors took advantage of the cupidity of the British public to enrich themselves, while incidentally working the mines of Potosí with disproportionately expensive establishments. So eager was the public to take stock in Potosí that shares which at the outset were quoted at 75 or 80, rose incredibly in the short space of six weeks. Some of them went up above 5000. As was to be expected, this speculative fever was followed by a panic which ruined not only the stockholders but those unfortunates like Edmund Temple, who had gone to Potosí in the employ of one of the wildcat companies, and those South Americans that had honored their drafts on London.
Then followed a long period of stagnation. But as railroads came nearer and cart-roads began to multiply, transportation became cheaper and new enterprises sprang up.
Any one is at liberty to secure a license from the proper authorities to dig a mine in the side of the mountain, provided he does not interfere with the property of someone else. The records show that since the Cerro was first discovered licenses have been issued for over five thousand mines. It is easy to imagine what a vast underground labyrinth exists beneath those many-colored slopes. Most of the openings, however, have been closed by avalanches of refuse from mines higher up the hill.
One day I was invited to visit several new mines that had recently been opened by a Chilean Company. In one mine, at an altitude of about fifteen thousand feet, I undertook to crawl into the depths for five hundred yards in order to see a new vein of silver ore that had recently been encountered. The exertion of getting in and out again at that altitude was terrific, yet the miners did not appear to feel it. They wear thick knitted caps which save their heads from the bumps and shield them from falling rocks. Their knees are protected by strong leather caps. Their feet they bind in huge moccasins. Those that carry out the ore frequently wear leather aprons tied on their backs. The workmen are a sordid, rough-looking lot who earn and deserve very good wages. Sometime ago when tin was higher than it is now, a large number of new mines were opened and unheard-of prices were paid for labor. Now that the price of tin has fallen, it is extremely difficult to get the Indians to accept a lower scale of wages. Consequently, most of the new mines have had to be closed.