May 27.—San Mateo, a village about the size of Surco and Matucana, is situated on both sides of the Rimac, and at an elevation of ten thousand two hundred feet above the level of the sea. The men work the chacras of maize, potatoes, and beans; and the women do all the household work, besides carrying their meals to the workmen on the farms, over hills that would make a lazy man shudder even to look at. They live in poverty and filth, but seem happy enough. We saw the women winnowing the beans (which were gathered dry from the plant) by collecting them in pans made of large gourds, and flinging them into the air; and also sifting flour, which comes from the other side of the Cordillera, about Jauxa. The costume of the Serrana women is different from that of the women of the coast. It consists of a very narrow skirt, and a body of coarse woollen cloth, generally blue, which comes from Lima, and is belted around the waist with a broad-figured woollen belt, woven by themselves. A woollen apron, with a figured border, is worn on the left side, hanging from the right shoulder by a strap; and in the cold of the morning and evening the shoulders are covered with a thick, colored blanket, reaching to the hips. A high, broad-brimmed straw-hat, with shoes of raw-hide, drawn with a string around the ancle, and no stockings, complete the costume. These people seem contented with what they have, and don't want money. It was with great difficulty we could persuade them to sell us anything, always denying that they had it. On our return from the mines at Párac, (where Mr. Gibbon had been sick with chills and fever,) he could not eat the chupe, which had, at first, been made with charqui, or jerked beef, but which had now dwindled down to cheese and potatoes. I made a speech to some curious loafers about the tent, in which I appealed to their pride and patriotism, telling them that I thought it strange that so large a town as San Mateo, belonging to so famous a country as Peru, could not furnish a sick stranger, who could eat nothing else, with a few eggs. Whereupon, a fellow went off and brought us a dozen, though he had just sworn by the Pope that there were no such things in the village.
May 28.—Mr. Gibbon and I, guided by a boy, rode over to the hacienda of San Jose de Párac, leaving Richards and Ijurra in charge of the camp. The ride occupied about three hours, over the worst roads, bordered by the highest cliffs and deepest ravines we had yet seen. The earth here shows her giant skeleton bare: mountains, rather than rocks, of granite, rear their gray heads to the skies; and our proximity made these things more striking and sublime. We found, on the sides of the hills, short grass and small clover, with some fine cattle feeding; and, wherever the mountain afforded a level shelf, abundance of fine potatoes, which the people were then gathering.
I brought letters from Mr. Prevost to Don Torribio Malarin, the superintendent of the mines, who received us kindly, and entertained us with much hospitality. His house was comfortably heated with a stove, and the chamber furnished with a large four-post bedstead, and the biggest and heaviest bureau I had ever seen. I was somewhat surprised at the sight of these—
"Not that the things were very rich or rare,
I wonder'd how the devil they got there."
They must have come up in pieces, for nothing so large could have been fastened on a mule's back, or passed entire in the narrow parts of the road.
The Hacienda is situated near the head of a small valley, which debouches upon the road just below San Mateo; the stream which drains it emptying into the Rimac there. It is a square, enclosed with one-story buildings, consisting of the mill for grinding the ore, the ovens for toasting it when ground, the workshops, store-houses, and dwelling-houses. It is managed by a superintendent and three mayordomos, and employs about forty working hands. These are Indians of the Sierra, strong, hardy-looking fellows, though generally low in stature, and stupid in expression. They are silent and patient, and, having coca enough to chew, will do an extraordinary quantity of work. They have their breakfast of caldo and cancha, (toasted maize,) and get to work by eight o'clock. At eleven they have a recess of half an hour, when they sit down near their place of work, chat lazily with each other, and chew coca, mixed with a little lime, which each one carries in a small gourd, putting it on the mass of coca leaves in his mouth with a wire pin attached to the stopper of the gourd that carries the lime. Some dexterity is necessary to do this properly without cauterizing the lips or tongue. They then go to work again until five, when they finish for the day, and dine off chupe. It has made me, with my tropical habit of life, shiver to see these fellows puddling with their naked legs a mass of mud and quicksilver in water at the temperature of thirty-eight Fahrenheit.
These Indians generally live in huts near the hacienda, and are supplied from its store-houses. They are kept in debt by the supplies; and by custom, though not by law, no one will employ an Indian who is in debt to his patron; so that he is compelled to work on with no hope of getting free of the debt, except by running away to a distant part of the country where he is not known, which some do.
The diseases incident to this occupation are indigestion, called empacho, pleurisy, and sometimes the lungs seem affected with the fumes and dust of the ore; but, on the whole, it does not seem an unhealthy occupation.
The principal articles furnished from the store-house are maize, coca, mutton, charqui, rum, sugar, coffee, tea, chocolate, chancaca, (cakes of brown sugar,) soap, baize, cotton, and coarse linen cloths, woollen cloths, silk handkerchiefs, foreign ponchos, ribbons, silk sashes, &c., &c., which are supplied to the Indian at about one hundred per cent. advance on their cost at Lima, and charged against his wages, which amount to half a dollar a day, with half a dollar more if he work at night.