Between 300 and 400 mules were sold for Chile in the same year. The load or carga is equal to about 200 lbs.
[74] The mark is eight Spanish ounces, or seven ounces, three pennyweights, fourteen grains, troy, English. The caxon is fifty quintals, or 5000 lbs. of ore.
[75] According to Myen, a recent traveller, this part of the Cordillera is not so elevated as more to the south:—he says it is passable at several points of the province of Copiapo.
[76] These heights are given on the authority of Dr. Gillies.
[77] Zamudio, an officer in the service of Buenos Ayres, who examined it the year before M. de Souillac, is said to have actually passed it with a two-wheel cart. Dr. Gillies does not give so favourable an account of its present state.