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PERU AS IT IS:
A RESIDENCE IN LIMA,
AND OTHER PARTS OF THE PERUVIAN REPUBLIC,
COMPRISING
AN ACCOUNT OF THE SOCIAL AND PHYSICAL FEATURES
OF THAT COUNTRY.
BY ARCHIBALD SMITH, M.D.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET,
Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty.
1839.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY,
Dorset Street, Fleet Street.
CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
CHAPTER I.
Site, population, and climate of Cerro Pasco.—Houses.—Coal,
and other kinds of fuel.—Timber for use of
the mines, &c.—Where brought from.—Fruit and
provisions.—Mines.—Mantadas.—Boliches.—Habilitador.—Mint.
—Returns of the mines.—Banks of Rescate.—Pasco foundery. Page 1
CHAPTER II.
Descent from Pasco to Huanuco.—Succession of
works for grinding and amalgamating silver
ore.—Quinoa.—Cajamarquilla.—Huariaca.—San Rafael.—Ambo.—Vale
of Huanuco; its beauties and advantages.—State of agriculture
in this vale, and traffic with Pasco.—The College named La
Virtud Peruana.—Steam navigation on the river Huallaga, and
civilization of the wild Indians of the Montaña.—Natural
productions of the Montaña. 28
CHAPTER III.
The Department of Junin.—The river Marañon.—General
sketch of the form of internal Government of
Peru.—Particular account of the Prefectorate or Department
of Junin.—Mines.—Agriculture.—Manufactures.—Public
Instruction.—Hospitals and Charitable
Asylums.—Vaccination.—Junta of Health.—Public
Baths.—Police.—Pantheons.—Roads.—Posts.—Public Treasury at
Pasco.—Administration of Justice.—National Militia. 65
CHAPTER IV.
Missionary College of Ocopa.—Its foundation, utility, downfall,
and decree for its restoration.—Introduction of Christianity
along the rivers Marañon, Huallaga, and Ucayali, &c. by the
Jesuits and Franciscans.—Letter from Friar Manuel Plaza, the
last great missionary of Ocopa, to the prefect of Junin. 113
CHAPTER V.
Christianized Indians of the Interior.—Their condition and
character.—Hardships imposed on them.—Desire of revenge. 143
CHAPTER VI.
War of Independence.—Unsettled state of the country
at the close of 1835 and early in 1836.—Gamarra’s
Government.—Insurrections.—Guerilla and Freebooters.—Foreign
Marines.—Lima invaded from the castles of Callao, under
command of Solar.—Orbegoso enters Lima.—Castles of Callao
taken by assault.—Battle of Socabaya.—Salaverry taken
prisoner.—Execution.—Public tranquillity hoped for under the
protection of Santa-Cruz. 169
CHAPTER VII.
On Climate and Disease.—Panama, Guayaquil, Peru, and Chile. 196
APPENDIX.
On the Zoology of Western Peru 237
Geognostic description of the country in the environs of
Arequipa, with an Analysis of the Mineral Waters in the
vicinity of the same city 266
Steam Navigation 286
Ecclesiastical Jubilee 291
Adieu to Lima 303
ERRATA.
Page 13, line 9, _for_ polv_e_rilla and ma_ssis_a _read_ polv_o_rilla
and ma_ciz_a.
128, ” 17, and in all other instances, _for_ Pozu_r_o _read_
Pozu_z_o.
187, ” 2, _for_ reali_s_e _read_ reali_z_e.
239, ” 6, _for_ the aborigines _read_ those.
Transcriber’s Note: The errata have been corrected but otherwise the
original spelling (in both English and Spanish) has been preserved.
PERU AS IT IS.
CHAPTER I.
Site, population, and climate of Cerro
Pasco.—Houses.—Coal, and other kinds of fuel.—Timber
for use of the mines, &c.—Where brought from.—Fruit and
provisions.—Mines.—Mantadas.—Boliches.—Habilitador.—Mint.—Returns
of the mines.—Banks of Rescate.—Pasco foundery.
The town of Cerro Pasco, about fourteen thousand feet above the level of
the sea, has its site in an irregular hollow on the northern side of a
group of small hills, which commence at Old Pasco on the north-east limit
of the high table-land of Bombon.
Cerro Pasco is thus situated at nearly equal distances, or about
twenty leagues, from Tarma on the south and Huanaco on the north,
both after their kind fertile and productive. It has the fine lake
of Chinchaycocha, near old Pasco on its south; and, on the north, the
outskirts of the town almost reach to a funnel-mouthed gullet which leads
with a rapid descent to the village of Quinoa, three leagues distant. Its
eastern and western aspects are bounded in the view by the respective
ridges of the eastern and western Cordillera; and the intervening spaces
between this bed of Peruvian treasure, and the stupendous barriers
presented by these commanding summits, forming a grand amphitheatre,
are enlivened throughout much of their extent by the innumerable herds
of sheep and folds of cattle that roam and flourish upon them. Here and
there are seen groups of the tame llama and shy vicuña; whilst the whole
landscape is variegated with lakes, rivulets, and marshes, whose surfaces
are ever rippled by the fluttering flocks of geese, ducks, snipes,
plovers, water-hens, herons, yanavicas, flamingos, &c. which at their
proper and appropriate seasons animate and adorn this wide expanse. Nor
should we omit to mention that far towards the west, and skirting the
limits of the great plains, are seen from the surrounding heights strange
fragments of rock, as in the neighbourhood of Huallay, that assume to the
distant eye the appearance of dark pine-trees rising under the shade of
the adjacent mountains.
The waters of this mineral district are partly carried off by the famous
Adit of Quiullacocha, and a considerable portion of these naturally
percolate northward into the hollow of Rumillana near to Cerro, from
whence starts the spring Puceoyaco, the source of the river Huallaga.
The population of Cerro Pasco is in a great degree migratory, for it
increases and diminishes according as the mines are highly productive,
or in a state of poverty and inundation for want of proper drainage:
were the drainage perfect, the treasure that might be extracted would
be incalculable. The number of inhabitants is never, perhaps, under
four or five thousand, and it has been known to swell up to thrice this
amount,—the most active hands happily finding accommodation under ground.
When the mines were thus productive, the abode of the master-miner rang
with the clink of hard dollars, as the die was kept in constant motion;
and the fair sex crowded from the more genial vales, and enlivened the
miners’ home with the song, guitar, and dance.
The climate of Cerro Pasco is for nearly one half the year, or from the
end of November to May, exceedingly gloomy and variable. In the course of
a few hours, the wind is often observed to take the round of the compass;
and in the same time it changes from fair to rain, from rain to sleet,
snow, hail, and rain again. The lanes, for streets they merit not to be
termed, are during the greater part of these months wet and miry. The
thermometer of Fahrenheit, during this period, rarely rises above 44° in
the shade, and seldom falls so low as the freezing point.
But during the dry season, which reigns from May to November, it is much
otherwise; and then, though the sun at noon shines forth with great power
in the face of a cloudless canopy, the frosts at night are intense, and
the evenings and the mornings are keenly piercing and cold. In the course
of the month of August the air is so remarkably dry that the nose and
fauces become parched and painful. The writer suffered so much from this
troublesome affection as to find it necessary to seek a more temperate
air a few leagues off, when the ailment disappeared immediately.
The severity of the climate of Cerro Pasco had little to mitigate its
effects in the manner wherein houses were constructed in the time of
the Spaniards. The dwellings are covered with thatch, and this is the
unfortunate cause of frequent and destructive fires breaking out in the
town. To avoid such accidents, one or two houses have been lately covered
with lead.
It was not until the arrival of the Peruvian Mining Company, in December
1825, that the inhabitants were taught how to mitigate the evils of their
inclement home by the construction of chimneys and proper fire-places, as
well as glazed windows; and for the introduction of these comforts to the
dwellings and firesides of the miners we have heard the company blessed,
long after its agents had to forsake those regions of subterranean
wealth. Though this rich district has not the natural advantages of a
favourable climate, yet it possesses that by which its rigour may be
softened and its effects meliorated; it has abundance of coal.
Within five miles or thereabouts of Cerro Pasco, is a coal-mine of
rather inferior quality, from which Captain Hodge, a distinguished miner
from Cornwall, used to supply his customers. The coal burnt at the
steam-engine was conveyed about five or six miles from the coal-mine,
near the pueblo of Rancas, called “La mina de las Maquinas,” and is
of very superior quality. The fuel, however, which is most common in
Cerro Pasco, as well as all over the frigid districts of the Sierra, is
“_champa_” a turf (not peat) cut from the surface of the marsh-land.
Charcoal becomes very expensive; and the large _braseros_ or pans, in
which the rich miners once used to burn it, (though not always with
impunity, because of the deleterious effect of the carbonic acid gas
evolved,) are fortunately out of fashion since the advantages of the
chimneys and grates have become known.
For smelting purposes, at different mining situations in the Sierra, the
ordure of quadrupeds is collected on the plains in the dry season, and
used as fuel with rushes and long grass which grow on the pasture-grounds.
Heavy timber for the use of the mines and mineral haciendas, and lighter
timber for house-building in Cerro Pasco, is dragged a distance of sixty
miles, and over bad and uneven road, by men and oxen, from the woods of
Paucartambo, at the entrance into the Montaña, to the south-east of Pasco.
Fodder is sometimes exceedingly scarce and dear in Cerro Pasco. It
frequently takes six reals, or one dollar (3_s._ or 4_s._), daily, to
feed a mule or horse with “alcaser” or barley-straw cut down when green,
and conducted on beasts’ backs from the small villages in adjoining
glens; and it is therefore customary for those who come to Pasco on
business, and have several mules or horses, to send them away to the
nearest convenient pastures until required to renew their journey.
Indeed, in Cerro Pasco itself are to be seen in the wet season small
patches of barley which never ripens, and is cut down green; but the
quantity grown is too trifling to deserve notice, except in so far as it
goes to show the sort of climate in this locality. Potatoes and “alcaser”
are the principal productions of Quinoa; for, though its pastures are
good, the temperature of the place is too cold to produce maize: but a
league or two lower down, at a village called Cajamarquilla, wheat may be
grown, but in small quantity for want of sufficient arable land. At this
place are numerous little gardens carefully cultivated, whence onions,
cabbages, lettuces, and flowers for the use of churches and chapels, &c.
are taken, and sold in Pasco market-place, which throughout the year
is well supplied with a variety of fruits, plenty of good fresh meat
and other provisions in abundance, from the warm and temperate valleys
beneath, and lakes and plains around the mines.[1]
“No one is ignorant,” says the intelligent and active prefect, Don
Francisco Quiros, in his report to the departmental junta of his
jurisdiction of Junin, assembled in Huanuco in 1833,—“No one is ignorant
that the richest fountain of our national wealth this day is concentrated
in the immense treasures of the mineral of Pasco. Its works, conducted
with intelligence and managed with economy, would be more than enough
to spread abroad abundance in all the republic, enough to draw towards
us the productions of the whole universe, and to increase incalculably
the delights and comforts of life. But the fatality which too often
persecutes what is good, has plunged us in misery. Avaricious hands,
desiring to enrich themselves in a moment, have for years back paralysed
our best exertions; and by the indiscreet liberality of our mineral
statute, ‘ordenanza,’ permitting the labouring miners to be paid in
ore, and thereby violating more and more the principles of subterranean
architecture, it would seem that instead of supporting the ample domes
with solid pillars, pains had been taken to bring them down. There, as in
a sepulchre, our most flattering hopes will be interred, if with a strong
hand abuses so enormous shall not be checked,—if a wholesome severity may
not be able to restrain the scandalous practice of thieving, as well as
the irregular mode of subterranean labour.”
The mine labourer can choose for himself, by the laws of the mineral
district, one of two sorts of payment. He can have four reals, or two
shillings, daily as a fixed hire; or he may choose to retain a certain
proportion of the ore, which he breaks down from the mine and carries,
(panting loudly under his burden, contained in a leathern bag or
_capacho_,) to the surface, where the division takes place by established
measure; and the women, with a pot of chicha in hand, eagerly grasped at
by the overheated and half-exhausted _capachero_ or carrier, commonly
stand by the mouth of the mine to carry home the miner’s share,—a bundle
of ore called “mantada.” A common workman’s daily share of metal may be
worth a great deal of money, or it may be worth little or nothing. When
the former is the case, the mine is said to be in “boya” or “bolla,”
namely, a state of rich production, when the common labourer naturally
insists upon being paid in metal; and again, when the mine does not
produce good ore, or such as pays well, the labourer, who throws away his
all on the pageantry of religious festivals and processions, claims his
four reals per day’s work, and will have no share in his employer’s bad
bargain.
At the mouth of the great mine, called the King’s mine,—“La mina del
Rey,”—which rendered the family of Yjura so famous and so wealthy,—a
labourer has been known in our own day to refuse eighty dollars for his
mantada, which abounded in pieces of polvorilla and maciza, or ore rich
in native and nearly pure silver. Native and massive silver is, however,
necessarily rare, and only occurs in small and scattered portions among
other metals of good quality. The better the quality of the ore, so much
greater is the damage and loss from robbery sustained by the mine and
master miner; and it often happens that the cost of raising the ore,
extracting the silver, paying government and local duties, the repair
of the underground works, supply of salt and quicksilver, together with
all the expense of major-domos, and wear and tear of mining utensils,
loss on cargo-mules and llamas, &c. exceed the whole returns of the mine.
Hence, we have known a most intelligent, active, and distinguished master
miner of Pasco, four or five of whose mines yielded mostly all the rich
ore extracted from that mineral in the years 1827 and 1828, declare that,
after having put about two millions of dollars in circulation from the
produce of these mines, he himself was rather a loser than a gainer,
notwithstanding such abundant returns.
The number of mines at Cerro usually at work since they have fallen
into the hands of the Patriots are comparatively few: though in the
different districts or sections of this place, known under the names
Santa Rosa, Yauricocha, Caya, Yanacancha, Cheupimarca, and Matagente,
there are several hundred well-known mines from which silver has been,
and yet may be, plentifully dug out, provided a perfect drainage should
ever be effected. The mines of late actually productive in Cerro Pasco
may be said generally to amount to about thirty in number, and to be at
work for about eight months in the year. Some of these are of course of
inferior quality; but the metals which, by assay or experiment on the
small scale, only yield six or seven _marcs_ per _cajon_ or box, (the
marc being eight ounces, and the cajon twenty-five mules’ load of ten
arrobes, or two hundred and fifty pounds each,) are found to be worth
the working, provided the ore be not very difficult to extract, either
on account of the character of the vein, or the depth of the workings.
The metals of Santa Rosa, when they yield ten marcs of silver per cajon,
and when quicksilver is at a moderate price, pay the miner better than
richer ores, because they do not tempt the cupidity of the labourers, who
are therefore contented with the fixed sum of four reals wages per day,
instead of the mantadas or bundles of metal already mentioned.
These mantadas are purchased by a class of men called bolicheros, or
owners of boliches. This boliche is, to the common grinding-mills on the
mine-estates or haciendas, what the hand-mill of the Israelites was to
the modern corn-mills moved by machinery: it is a kind of rocking-stone,
placed on the concave surface of a larger stone well accommodated
underneath. Metal, in comparatively small quantities, is ground between
these two stones by a man who, with the help of a long pole, balances
himself on the upper roundish and heavy stone, which by the weight and
motion of his own body he keeps rocking incessantly. The metal, or ore,
thus ground, is the very richest; poor or ordinary ore could not pay on
this small scale: but the ore bought of the labouring miners usually
enriches the bolichero, who, tempted by the prospects of a ready fortune,
does not hesitate to encourage the thieving practices complained of in
the departmental report of our friend the prefect of Junin, himself a
native of Cerro Pasco.
The town of Cerro Pasco—of which the very “adobes,” or unburnt bricks,
partly used in some of the houses, contain silver—is itself so burrowed
under, that one is really in no small danger of inadvertently, and
especially at night, falling into old mines, or rather pits,—sometimes
superficial, sometimes deep and fathomless, and half filled with water.
The mines are irregularly wrought under ground; and the experienced hands
burrow like rabbits through holes not commonly known, and so come at
rich metals by stealth, to be immediately exchanged for dollars at the
bolicheros. The best way to prevent such plunder would be to prohibit
boliches. While this species of robbery goes on, Cerro Pasco, though
removed from the sphere of the earthquakes that infest the coast, is in
risk of being swallowed up by the falling-in of the arches of the mines,
supported on pillars frequently consisting of rich ore. The thieves
pilfer from these pillars, and so weaken the supports of the whole
underground fabric, that now and then entire arches fall in, sometimes
producing a sacrifice of lives or other disastrous consequences.
We see the Pasco miners always in the midst of riches, and always
embarrassed: they are kept in a state of continued tantalization. The
miner, it is true, sometimes has immense and rapid gains, in spite of
rogues and plunderers everywhere about him, at comparatively little
expense of time or money; and this occasional success leads others
to indulge in a hope of similar good fortune, which hurries the
majority of speculators in this channel into pecuniary difficulties:
for, as we have seen, the necessary outlay is often great without any
compensation; and when the capital is too limited, though in the main
the undertaking be a good one, ruin is near. Shopkeepers and dealers in
plata-piña are tempted, by prospects of commercial advantage, to lend
money to the harassed mine-owner to enable him to forward his works,
and to repay the loan in piña[2] at so much per marc. Such a lender
is called “habilitador:” but it unluckily happens for this capitalist
that, by the custom and usage of the miner, the last “habilitador” has
a claim to be first paid, which leads to the worst practical results.
The miner is generally a reckless gambler, who spends money as fast
as it comes to him, not in improving his mines, but in indulging his
vices; and in this manner the interest of the first habilitadors may be
successively postponed to the claims of the most recent, who frequently
is disappointed in his turn; while the difficulties of the miner are not
removed, but merely prolonged, and he is involved in everlasting disputes
and litigation.
The risk, expense, and delay occasioned at all times, and more
particularly in days of civil broil, by the necessity of forwarding
the bars of silver from Pasco to Lima for the purpose of coinage, are
felt as so many real grievances by the miner; and it is known that these
causes, with the desire to avoid the payment of the established duties,
have led to a contraband trade across the by-ways of the mountains to
the coast, which no number of custom-house officers could prevent, even
on the extravagant supposition of their being proof against bribery and
corruption. The evils attendant on the existing arrangements led the
legislature to pass a law for the establishment of a mint at the mines
of Pasco; but this desirable object has not yet been carried into effect
in a proper and efficient manner, though we understood that the prefect
Quiros employed a native tradesman to erect some rude machinery by which
a few hundred dollars were thrown off daily.
An extract from a memoir presented in the year 1832 to the congress
in Lima by Mr. Tudela, the Peruvian minister of “Hacienda” or home
affairs, may give an idea of the returns of the mines. “To animate mining
industry,” says he, “one most essential thing is the convenient supply
of quicksilver, with which our metals are generally extracted from
their ores; because smelting is not suited for the greater number of
these, neither is it used for those ores to the refining of which it is
adapted.[3] The price of the quicksilver determines the profit or loss on
the poorer metals; and neither exemption from duties of _cobos_[4] and
tithes, nor any other protection which the law dispenses to the mining
corporation, compensate for the expense of this article.
“In Huancavelica, Peru possesses one of the richest quicksilver mines
on earth,—a mine which comprehends forty-one hills, examined and found
intersected with veins, of which one part alone, that of Saint Barbara,
called the “Great,” yielded five thousand quintals of quicksilver per
annum for two centuries. It was, therefore, a matter of importance to
inquire if it could be conveniently worked; and it has been found that,
with moderate support and certain arrangements, quicksilver may be
procured at sixty-five dollars per quintal.[5]
“The operations of the mints concur in proving the necessity of banks:
for, granting the mint of Lima has stamped in the last three years
4,902,762 dollars, and the mint at Cuzco, in the years 1829 and 1831,
969,939 dollars, the augmentation of coinage does not correspond to
that which should result from the abolition of the duties of cobos and
tithes since the 26th February 1830, and the increase in the coinage at
Cuzco proceeds from other causes. When these duties” (viz. cobos and
tithes) “were yet exacted, in the Lima mint alone, in the year 1827,
more than 2,700,000 dollars were coined; but in that year, in addition
to the beneficial drainage of the Pasco mines, the contraband trade had
not extended itself as afterwards it did. To diminish the evils produced
by contraband trade in mining places or in their immediate environs,
funds, in addition to banks of ‘Rescate,’ are necessary in the houses of
coinage; with which being provided, neither the holders of bullion shall
be deterred from presenting it because of the delay they experience in
being paid its value, nor, if this delay be shortened, shall the treasury
suffer the severe losses to which it is actually subjected. One hundred
thousand dollars in the Lima mint, and fifty thousand in the mint of
Cuzco, should prove sufficient to meet all difficulties.”
We may remark, that the want of such mint deposits as are alluded to by
Mr. Tudela is one of the principal sources of mistrust in revolutionary
times; as the possessor of bullion will rather run the risk of smuggling,
than the chance either of losing all his capital, or of being long
deprived of its value in hard dollars, if he carries it in the regular
channel to the Lima mint. The banks of Rescate to which Mr. Tudela
refers, now so much desired in Peru, are only funds deposited in certain
situations, and under proper superintendence, for the miner to be thereby
enabled to exchange his piña at a fixed and just value in current money,
by which he is put in possession of dollars as soon as his piña is ready
for the market. And this, we may venture to say, is the only sort of bank
calculated to be of real service to the dissolute miner; as it encourages
his industry, without putting it in his power to outrun his credit with
the bank, or of ruining himself and family, and kindling the worst of
passions in consequence of forfeiting his mines, which would frequently
be the case if these were accepted in security for cash advances, to be
spent probably in feasts, frolics, cards, and dicing, instead of being
applied to the professed purpose of working his mines or improving his
property.
The number of marcs[6] of silver reduced to bars, in the foundery at
Cerro Pasco, from the year 1825 to 1836 inclusive, is, according to the
best information, as follows:—
_Years._ _Marcs._
1825 56,971
1826 163,852
1827 221,707
1828 201,330
1829 82,031
1830 95,265
1831 135,134
1832 219,378
1833 257,669
1834 272,558
1835 246,820
1836 237,840
---------
2,190,555