Archibald Smith

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 (3s. or 4s.), 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:—