The climate of the city of Potosi is cold and unpleasant, being elevated over fourteen thousand feet above the ocean. The vegetable productions in its neighborhood are less than are found on the plains of Oruro. The llamas, alpacas, vicuñas, and guanacos, are large and valuable.
Rock salt is found among the mountains in large veins. Small springs of water shoot up and flow down the La Plata basin, uniting in streams which wash away the earth from silver, gold, copper, tin, and precious stones. These streams run rapidly to the base of the Cordilleras; there meeting expanded plains, they form lakes, which are evaporated and leave a crust of salt. Numerous streams, passing on to join each other, finally cut their way boldly through the Andes, where they become large enough to accommodate schools of fish. Then the Indian is found planting maize and potatoes; sowing wheat, barley, and lucerne; raising horned-cattle, sheep, and horses. He buys salt from the up-countryman, and gives him salted fish in payment, or receiving hard silver dollars for beef, mutton, and flour.
Near these tributaries of the Pilcomayo, at its head, the Indian plants sugar-cane and coffee. His wooden hut is shaded by the trees of the valley, and his doorway decorated with the chirimoya and granadilla plants.
The Pilcomayo is a muddy stream. It creeps along at the base of a ridge of mountains, which stretch towards Brazil, as though seeking an outlet to the south before it trends to the Paraguay, as the Beni runs to the Madeira.
The department of Potosi imports from the Argentine Republic annually about five thousand mules, eight hundred horses, and five thousand jackasses, and three thousand head of cattle. A mule is worth twenty dollars, a horse fifteen, a donkey six, and beeves ten dollars a head.
Bridle-reins, stirrups, saddle-cloths, soap, and tobacco, also enter, for which silver is paid in exchange.
Chinchilla skins are worth seven dollars the dozen; hides, two dollars each; coffee, from Yungas, twenty-five dollars per quintal of one hundred pounds; sheep's wool, twelve dollars; alpaca wool, thirty dollars; tin, twelve dollars; bar or pure copper, sixteen dollars and fifty cents; Yungas chocolate, twenty-five dollars; and vicuña skins, forty-three and three-quarter cents.
There are imported from the Pacific coast annually six hundred thousand dollars worth of silks, woollen, and cotton goods.
The foreign trade with Potosi is principally carried on through the port of Cobija. The road passes through the great desert of Atacama, which is called "Departmento Litoral."
Among the lofty, barren Cordilleras, the donkey driver finds it difficult to climb the steep roads, or to descend into the deep ravines, where on small flats are found a few vicuñas or chinchillas, and halts to feed his tired animals. Some of these pasture-grounds or "portreros"—as they are called—are inhabited by Indians, who cultivate the ground, and are attentive to persons with droves of mules from Chili on their way to Peru.