Puno is surrounded by heights covered with patches of potatoes, barley, and quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa), the huts of Indians being interspersed amongst them; and immediately over the town there is an isolated rocky ridge of carboniferous limestone perforated by several natural caverns, called the Huassa-pata. The shores of the lake are a few hundred yards from the town, and at the little port there are always a number of balsas, made of large bundles of reeds tied together, with a reed sail.[132] The view to seaward is, however, confined by the peninsula of Capachica, and two islands at the mouth of the bay of Puno. A canal to enable balsas to come up nearer the town was made by the Spanish Intendente Gonzalez Montoya in the beginning of the present century.[133]
The flora of a country which, though within the tropics, is at an elevation of nearly thirteen thousand feet above the sea, must necessarily be meagre, and the few plants are lowly and inconspicuous. I noticed the following in the immediate vicinity of Puno. The only tree was one of stunted growth, with a pretty pink and white flower, and dark-green leaves, almost white underneath, called "oliva silvestre" by the Spaniards, and ccolli in Quichua (Buddlea coriacea); and of these there were not more than a dozen, sheltered behind walls. By far the greater number of plants are Compositæ: of these I observed three species of Tagetes—one with a small yellow flower; another very sweet, called by the Indians huaccatay and chicchipa, and used to flavour their chupes; and a large shrubby marygold, called sunchu;[134] also the common sow-thistle, a Hieracium, and the tola and ccanlli before mentioned, used for fuel. I found two Verbenas and a Solanum, all with purple flowers; a clover, a creeping cucurbitaceous plant, two Cacti, a large dock, three Geraniums, all with pink flowers; three Crucifers, very small herbs, one with a white flower, one with a yellow flower, and the third the common shepherd's-purse; a Gilium with a minute white flower, a small legume with tomentose leaves, a pretty little creeping Adoxa, a Statice, a wild Chenopodium, a Veronica, a minute Stellaria, a Rhinanthus, a mallow, a plantago, and three species of wild Oxalis, two very minute with white flowers, and one with a yellow flower. There were also two ferns, one a very beautiful Gymnogramma with silvery fronds; nine grasses, the most abundant of which was the coarse Stipa ychu; and a few mosses. On the shores of lake Titicaca I saw rushes in great quantities, a Mimulus, a Ranunculus, a Rumex, and three grasses. These plants, though lowly and unpretending, are in sufficient abundance to cover the country with verdure and pretty wild flowers, and brighten those parts which are not cultivated. The cultivation consists of quinoa, cañahua (both Chenopodia), barley, potatos, ocas (Oxalis tuberosa), and wheat in very small quantities, which does not ripen.
Close to Puno, on the south, are the famous silver-bearing mountains of Cancharani and Laycaycota, to which Puno owes her existence: and to the discovery and working of the Laycaycota mine in the middle of the seventeenth century a very curious history is attached; which is always talked of by the people of Puno as one of the principal events in the annals of their city.
In about 1660 an exceedingly rich vein of silver had been discovered on the hill of Laycaycota, by one José de Salcedo, which was called the "Veta de la Candelaria." One account says that the secret of its existence was revealed to Salcedo by an Indian girl. José de Salcedo, and his brother Gaspar, continued to work this vein, and several others which were opened on the Cancharani and Laycaycota hills; enormous quantities of silver were extracted; and the fame of his enormous wealth, and its source, attracted crowds of unruly people to the spot, from the various towns of Peru.[135] Salcedo is said to have been generous and open-handed in finding employment for applicants, but, from some unexplained cause, tumults took place at the mines in 1665, which, from first to last, are said to have caused 450 violent deaths. The governor of the district, Don Angelo de Peredo, seems to have taken part against the Salcedos, who retired to the village of Juliaca, with a body of armed followers, in November, 1665. In March, 1666, they attacked the governor's people who had possession of the mines; Salcedo neglected repeated orders to come to Lima; and was accused of having threatened to extort a general pardon from the Viceroy, at the head of a thousand men. Salcedo himself, however, appears to have been absent at Cuzco when the attack was made on the mines. These tumults, accompanied by much bloodshed, continued until 1669, when the Viceroy Count of Lemos came to Puno in person, and settled the question by sending José and Gaspar de Salcedo to Lima, where José was tried, condemned, and executed. Gaspar was detained a prisoner in Callao castle.
It was the general impression at the time, and is so still at Puno, that jealousy and envy of their riches occasioned the persecution of these men; for not only were the charges against them most frivolous, but the Count of Santistevan, the predecessor of the Count of Lemos, had caused the Bishop of Arequipa to publish a general pardon of all offences in 1666. The accusations against José Salcedo were that he went about with armed men, took a seat next to the corregidor at a bull-fight in Cuzco, and neglected to obey the order to come to Lima.[136]
A petition was afterwards sent to Spain, representing that the Salcedos were the victims of injustice, and not guilty of disloyalty; that the Viceroy's proceedings were irregular; and that the heirs of the Count of Lemos were bound to make reparation for the evils caused to these deserving men. The petition also prayed that the President of the Council of the Indies might not be allowed to decide the case, because he was related to the Count of Lemos.[137] This petition seems to have received favourable consideration; for I find that the son of José de Salcedo was afterwards created Marquis de la Villa Rica de Puno, and that he took a leading part in subsequent mining operations.
The most remarkable part of this story is that on the day of Salcedo's death the mine became full of water, and the Viceroy was thus disappointed in his expectation of succeeding to the wealth of which he had deprived his victim. This curious coincidence made a great impression on the Indians, which is not yet effaced; and they still point out a small lake or pond that is said to cover the once rich vein or "Veta de la Candelaria."
Salcedo's son, the Marquis of Villa Rica, attempted to reach his father's source of wealth by cutting a horizontal adit or socabon in the side of the hill looking on lake Titicaca; and he is said to have penetrated nearly 700 yards, and within sixty yards of his father's perpendicular shaft; but his funds failed him, and he died mad. In spite, however, of the filling up of the "Candelaria," great numbers of other shafts were sunk, and much silver was extracted, both by the Marquis, and by other speculators. A report, dated 1718, mentions as many as forty-six shafts on the hills near Puno, which were then being worked.[138] In 1740 a native company attempted to finish the socabon which had been commenced by the Marquis, but their workmen were unable to cut through the masses of porphyry, and, after vast expense, it was abandoned a second time.
From 1775 to 1824 the mines near Puno yielded ores worth 1,786,000 marcs of silver, at seven to nine dollars the marc; the richest year being 1802, when the yield was 52,000 marcs; but since 1816 it has been steadily decreasing, and in 1824, the year after the expulsion of the Spaniards, it had sunk very low. In 1826 the manto mine, to which the socabon leads, which was excavated by the Marquis of Villa Rica, was granted to General O'Brien, a gallant and enthusiastic old Irish hero of South American independence, who resumed the work, but without any success. Mr. Begg, an enterprising English merchant, undertook the completion of the socabon in 1830. He imported expensive machinery from England, employed an intelligent engineer named Patterson, and continued to work the manto mine until 1839. He built himself a house furnished with every English comfort, and lived in very good style; but the speculation was a failure, and he left the country a poor man in 1840, and died in Chile. After the departure of Mr. Begg, some Peruvian speculators continued to work at the same mine, but without any energy; and, at the time of M. de Castelnau's visit in 1845, only thirty workmen were employed.[139] When Lieut. Gibbon, U.S.N., passed through Puno in 1851, the manto was still being worked, but at the time of my visit it had been entirely abandoned since 1858.
It is one of the great evils arising from the political condition of Peru since the independence that there is a complete want of confidence in each other amongst the moneyed classes, and an absence, to a great extent, of the spirit of enterprise; so that any combination on a large scale for mining, or other purposes of a similar nature, is almost impossible. Peru is still a very young country, and there is reason to hope that this state of things will not continue; but now a feeling of suspicion, added to a want of energy, prevents the formation of native companies. Thus the manto is abandoned, and the numerous mines which once covered the hills of Cancharani and Laycaycota, and actually created the city of Puno, which nestles at their feet, are not worked. At present there is only one small mine at work, high up on the hill of Cancharani, called the Cachi Vieja. Its proprietor, Don Manuel Ferrandis, is an upright, intelligent, and most kind-hearted old gentleman, who has had much experience in mining operations; and on the 29th of March he took me to visit the abandoned manto, and his own works at Cachi Vieja.