The town of Ica or Valverde is situated in a valley, and contains about 6000 inhabitants, its principal commerce consisting in glass, wine and brandy; it stands in 13° 50' south latitude, and 75° 28' west longitude, 140 miles east-south-east of Lima.
Pisco was formerly situated on the shore of the South-Sea, but in 1687, an earthquake, accompanied by an inundation, destroyed the old town, and it was rebuilt by the inhabitants a quarter of a league further inland. It contains about 300 families, most of whom are mestizoes, mulattoes and negroes; the whites being the least predominant: the road of Pisco is a fine anchoring ground, capable of holding a large navy, and sheltered from the south-east and south-west winds, which are the most violent in this quarter. Pisco is 118 miles south-south-east of Lima, in 13° 46' south latitude, and 76° 9' west longitude.
Nasca has a fine harbour, but the town is in a state of decay; the surrounding country is fertile in vines and sugar canes, and is watered by a river of the same name. Nasca is 190 miles south-east of Lima, in 14° 48' south latitude, and 75° 6' west longitude.
INTENDANCY OF GUANCAVELICA.
This province lies almost entirely in the mountains, and is bounded on the north by Tarma, east by Lima, west by Cuzco, and south by Guamanga.
The climate of this country is in general cold, owing to the high situation of the land which is surrounded by the lofty peaks of the Andes; its districts are chiefly those of Xauxa and Angaraes, the latter of which is about seventy-two miles in length from east to west, and twelve in width, of a very irregular figure, being bounded by the Cordillera on the west; this district produces wheat, maize and other grains, although its climate is in general cold, being temperate only in the valleys; in these are cultivated the sugar-cane, some fruits and herbs, and a strong grass which serves for fuel in the ovens in which the quicksilver is extracted; from the sale of this fuel great emolument is derived when the mines are in work. The district abounds in cattle, and as mercury is found in it, it also produces various earths used in painting. The head waters of some of the streams which join the Apurimac are in this jurisdiction, which contains about thirty Indian villages.
The intendancy of Guancavelica is chiefly of note on account of the mercury mines it contains, there being only one silver mine of any importance. The quicksilver of Peru is only found near Valdivui in the district of Pataz, near the great Nevado de Pelagato; in the district of Conchucos, to the east of Santa; in the district of Huamalics, to the south-east of Guarachuco, at the Banos de Jesus; in the district of Guialas near Guaraz, and near Guancavelica; of all those places Guancavelica is the only one which has ever produced that useful mineral in great abundance, the principal mine being situated in the mountains of Santa Barbara, south of the town of Guancavelica at the distance of more than a mile; it was discovered by the Indian Gonzalo de Abincopa, in the year 1567; but appears to have been known in the time of the Incas, who used cinnabar in painting themselves, and they are said to have procured it in this neighbourhood. The mine was opened in September 1570; it is divided into three stories, named Brocal, Comedio and Cochapata, the last of which the government forbid to be worked, the bed containing red and yellow sulfuretted arsenic or orpiment, which was the cause of many deaths.
This mine is free from water, and contains galleries cut in the solid rock at an immense expence. There has been extracted from it up to the year 1789, 1,040,452 quintals, or 136,573,162 pounds troy, being 4 or 6000 quintals annually; 50 quintals of tolerable mineral containing and yielding by distillation eight or twelve pounds of mercury. The cinnabar is found in a bed of quartz freestone of about 1400 feet in thickness, in strata and in small veins, so that the metalliferous mass averages only from 196 to 229 feet in breadth. Native mercury is rare, and the cinnabar is accompanied with red iron ore, magnetic iron, galena and pyrites, the crevices being frequently variegated with sulphate of lime, calcareous spar, and fibrous alum, and the bottom of the mine is 13,805 feet above the level of the sea. This mine employed seven thousand Peruvian camels, or alpacas, and llamas in carrying the ore to the furnaces of the town; which animals were governed by dogs trained for the purpose.
Carelessness, or rather the avidity of the overseers destroyed this celebrated mine for a time, as this being the only royal mine in Spanish America, these men were anxious to obtain as much profit and credit as they could by sending great quantities of the mineral to the royal office. The gallery of the Brocal, which was the uppermost, was supported by pillars of the rock containing the ore; as the mineral became scarcer in the body of the mine, these pillars were thinned, and at last cut away, so that the roof fell in and hindered all communication with the other parts. At present, it is said, some attempts are making, owing to the dearth of mercury from China, to re-open the gallery; but the silver works of Peru are mostly supplied from small veins which are found in other parts of the same chain of mountains, near Silla Casa; these veins generally traverse alpine limestone, are full of calcedony, and although thin, they cross and form masses, from which the Indians, who are allowed to work them, are said to obtain 3000 quintals annually by merely uncovering the surface.
The chief town of this intendancy is Guancavelica, thirty miles north-west of Guamanga, in 12° 45' south latitude, and 74° 46' west longitude. It was founded, in 1572, by the viceroy Toledo, and stands in a breach of the Andes, being one of the largest and richest cities of Peru. The temperature of the air at Guancavelica is very cold, and the climate changeable, as it often rains and freezes on the same day, in which there are tempests of thunder, lightning and hail.