The houses are generally built of tufa found near a warm spring in the neighbourhood, and there is a dangerous torrent near the city, which is crossed by several bridges. This town was founded on account of the quicksilver mines of Santa Barbara, from the working of which the inhabitants derived all their subsistence.
In this intendancy with its dependencies of Castro Vireyna and Lircay there is one mine of gold, eighty of silver, two of quicksilver, and ten of lead.
Guancavelica is 12,308 feet, and the neighbouring mountain of Santa Barbara 14,506 feet, above the level of the sea.
The number of its inhabitants is now only 5200, probably owing to the abandonment of the mine.
The other towns of most note are Xauxa and Castro Vireyna.
Xauxa or Jauja is the chief town of a district on the southern extremity of Tarma, reaching to about forty leagues from Lima, in the spacious valleys and plains between two parallel chains of the Andes. The river Xauxa runs through this district, in which there are several pretty towns or large villages well inhabited by Spaniards, Indians and Mestizoes.
The soil produces plenty of wheat and other grains, together with a great variety of fruits, and the city is on the great road of the mountains to Cuzco, Paz, and La Plata; it borders on the east, as well as the district of Tarma with the country between the Andes and the Apurimac, inhabited by fierce and wild Indians, some of whom have made inroads into these jurisdictions; the missionaries have however succeeded in establishing villages amongst them, the nearest being the town of Ocopa.
Castro-Vireyna is the chief town of a district of the same name, which lying on the Cordillera, has a very various climate, and produces the fruits of the tropic and temperate regions.
On its great plains, which are in the highest and coldest parts, are numerous flocks of the Vicuna, or Peruvian sheep, whose wool is the chief article of commerce.