1827.] L 297 ] 



MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE, DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN. 



Travels in South America, in 1825-26, 

 by Captain Andrews^ late Commander of 

 H.C.SWyndham. 2 rols. pout 8ro. 1827. 

 If the ruining- schemes in South America 

 have done the schemers no good, they 

 have been the means at least of adding 1 

 very considerably to our knowledge, not 

 only of the events of the revolutionary 

 war, and the characters of the leaders, 

 but of the face of the country, and of the 

 condition and manners of its population. 

 They have been the cause of several very 

 intelligent persons crossing the immense 

 continent in all directions, many of whom 

 have given very copious, and, what was 

 scarcely to be hoped for, in general very 

 consistent accounts of the country. Head's, 

 Miers', and Calclough's, particularly, are 

 creditable specimens. To these we have 

 now to add Captain Andrews, whose little 

 volumes will deservedly class with the 

 very best of his predecessors. He works 

 a most glib and felicitous pen, and, cur- 

 rente calamo, plans and bargains, de- 

 scribes and speculates, with the same feli- 

 city with which he seems to have entered 

 into the spirit and manners of the people, 

 among whom he freely mixed, giving and 

 gleaning delight almost wherever he 

 went. 



He set out, it appears, as agent, and 

 himself a very considerable shareholder, 

 of the Chili and Peru Mining Association, 

 armed with discretionary powers ; which 

 he a man as much interested as any one in 

 the fortunes of the company freely and 

 confidingly made use of ; but of which his 

 employers a very common thing quick- 

 ly repented ; and, in consequence, though 

 in the midst of what he conceived his suc- 

 cessful prosecution of the views of the as- 

 sociation, he was recalled a mortifica- 

 tion, which he attributes, apparenty with 

 good reason, to ignorance in the directors 

 at home, and envy in his brother agents 

 abroad. At all events, though niggardly 

 enough in their approbation of his general 

 conduct, he has had the satisfaction of 

 receiving their testimony to his econo- 

 mical management of their funds. 



With all his hopes, by this unexpected 

 stroke, thus blown into the air, and seeing 

 the miserable management of the associa- 

 tion, Captain Andrews, as a shareholder, 

 an agent, and a man of business, is a good 

 deal vexed, and naturally gives a little 

 Tent to his vexation. The mining com- 

 panies have most of them, he thinks, acted 

 ignorantly and unwisely in giving way to 

 a senseless panic, and suddenly abandon- 

 ing the fair hopes that were springing be- 

 fore them. The world is judging, too, 

 very blindly about them. Not because 



M.M. New Series. VOL. IV. 



some speculations were wild, must all be 

 considered impracticable ; nor because 

 Coruish men cannot profitably work Ame- 

 rican mines, are American mines unwork- 

 able. Companies have gone headlong to 

 work; some have dispatched English 

 miners, with English machinery, on pro- 

 digious salaries, before a mine was pur- 

 chased ; and even Captain Andrews' em- 

 ployers, who seem to have begun more 

 like men of business, sent a cargo of work- 

 men, before they heard whether he had 

 really done any thing or not. His opinion 

 of American mining and a very rational 

 one it appears to be is, that neither men 

 nor machinery are wanted from England, 

 but simply capital. There are men enough 

 in America, accustomed to the mines of 

 the country, and to the cheapest modes of 

 working them ; they only require being 

 set to work. As gain has been made, so 

 by the same means it may be made again : 

 the old ground is not exhausted, and there 

 is virgin ground in abundance. With 

 these labourers, and beginning humbly 

 using a little forethought, and advancing 

 by degrees slowly and cautiously, intro- 

 ducing improvements occasionally the 

 mines will well repay the working. This 

 is the sum of Captain Andrews' opinion ; 

 and he argues the matter well, and sub- 

 stantiates his case with some stout facts, 

 and with good phrase and emphasis. 



The volumes, however, must be looked 

 at a little as the journal of a tour. Captain 

 Andrews started from Buenos Ayres, and 

 travelled through the united provinces of 

 La Plata places very little known along 

 roads none of the smoothest, and on mules 

 something of the roughest, relieved occa- 

 sionally by a day's ride on horseback, full 

 two thousand miles, meeting a town about 

 every 250 miles on an average through 

 Cordova, Santiago del Estero, Tucuman, 

 Salta to Potosi, the capital of the new re- 

 public of Bolivar; from thence, by the 

 deserts of Caranja, to Arica ; and, finally, 

 to Santiago de Chili and Coquimbo. In 

 general, he found the population of the 

 towns considerably below the common 

 estimate, and the country every where 

 thinly peopled almost every where a 

 want of employment, and the Indians in a 

 wretched, woe - begone condition. But 

 every where at Cordova, Santiago, Tu- 

 cuman, Salta, Jujuy he meets with 

 agreeable society nay, elegant and cul- 

 tivated ; every where a smiling welcome, 

 plenty of feasting and dancing; and 

 every where the good people were de- 

 lighted to hear of the English coming 

 among them not to plunder, but enrich 

 them to set the streams of wealth a flow- 



2 Q 



