350 The Two Miners of Famatina. [ApRIL, 
that they wished to know. They then immediately conducted their 
prisoner to the city of Tucuman ; where he was subjected to a brief and 
summary trial, and was immediately condemned to death for being in 
correspondence with the enemies of the Patria. Soon after his condem- 
nation, a priest, named Jose Augustin Colombres, came to confess Leita ; 
and, with the view of extracting from him the knowledge of where he 
had hidden his supposed treasures, he promised to procure a grant of 
his life on condition of such disclosure. Leita was easily induced, under 
his desperate circumstances, to fall into this snare; and having made 
the desired confession to the wily priest, he was almost immediately shot 
in the Plaza of the town. Two years after this, the above-named priest 
made a journey to the Escaleras, for the purpose, as is supposed, of 
taking away the buried treasure, the knowledge of which he had ex- 
tracted from its owner; and thus concluded the first modern mining 
enterprise of the Famatina. 
This history was related tome by a person named ————*, who was 
himself intimately connected with the mines then working in the 
mountain, and who went on to tell me a few further anecdotes relating to 
them. He said that having by dint of hard industry amassed a little 
capital, he determined to embark it in the mining speculations which the 
success of Leita and Echavavia had brought somewhat more into fashion ; 
and that having exhausted his own savings of 2000 dollars, he borrowed 
2000 more, with which he was at length successful, and speedily after- 
wards accumulated a capital of 10,000 dollars ; but that disgusted by 
the vexatious obstacles thrown in his way by the new government, he 
had retired to Cordova with his little fortune, and embarked it in trade. 
Until this period the mines of the Famatina had been looked upon as 
open to the enterprises of any body who chose to engage in working 
them. But when Rivadavia came into power in Buenos Ayres, he de- 
termined on turning their wealth to a national account. He therefore 
sent to the governor of Rioja for a statement of the general state of 
the mines, and their adaptation to the purposes he had in view, of 
making them subservient to the interests of the state. The consequence 
was that a great company was formed at Buenos Ayres under the auspices 
of Messrs. Hullet, Brothers, and Co., consisting partly of English and 
partly of native merchants; and to this company the right of working 
all the mines in the province of Rioja was conceded, for a certain period, 
and under settled restrictions. 
It may be well to close this sketch by a brief notice of the present, 
or at least the very recent, condition of the mines at Famatina. Some 
years ago, the number of working miners, employed on the mountain, 
was rather less than four hundred, a comparatively insignificant number, 
when it is considered that the mountain is twenty leagues in length, and 
that not more than about one-fourth of that extent had been, in any way, 
explored for mining purposes, and even that portion had been examined 
very imperfectly. Indeed, so rude was the method then employed of 
working the mines, and so inexhaustible are the riches supposed to be 
which they contain, that, at the time referred to, the miners used to turn 
away with contempt from any spot which did not contain ore capable of 
returning 640 ounces of silver for every cajon (about 4,800lb ); and 
* T omit the name, as it might possibly expose my informant to persecution. 
