OF ATACAMA AND COQTJIMBO. 259 



seventy years of age, but these are extremely rare. Apires are young men whose powers are 

 scarcely developed, their promotion to barreteros depending on the experience obtained and 

 strength acquired by practice. Some of them will bring on their shoulders, from depths of 120 

 yards, hide sacks of over- or stone weighing from 2&quot;&amp;gt;0 to :-i7-&quot;&amp;gt; /&quot;mi ,!s and one has been known 

 to bring no less than 42.&quot;&amp;gt; pounds up the rugged sha t that distance. It is pain- ul to witness 

 one of these half-nake:] fellows issue from the mine under such a load. With features distorted, 

 eyes starting, perspiration dripping from every tensely-strained muscle, as he comes staggering 

 into the fresh air, a shrill, deep-drawn breath penetrates to your very marrow, and tells more 

 forciby than all of the bodily exertion. But as you turn from the man to the treasures he 

 throws down in the light of day, he will have dashed the trickling drops from his brow, drank 

 copiously from a cask of water near by, and you just catch a glimpse of his head as he descends 

 for another load, very probably humming a stanza from some ribald song. Besides being short 

 lived, it has also been remarked that they have fewer children than their countrymen engaged 

 in other pursuits a fact not traceable to infidelity or analogous causes, but more probably 

 attributable to the influence of impure air on their systems and fatigue of the body when they 

 come out from the mines at the expiration of their periods of labor. When taken sick, the 

 worthless or indifferent are discharged at once, the faithful laborer only being retained in wages 

 and food until able to resume work. Physicians or surgeons there are none, and the only 

 knowledge of the healing art is what the administradores may pick up by experience, and is 

 possessed by the medicas who may be found about every inhabited place. Should the vein 

 they are working exhibit symptoms of failing, which their experience from boyhood soon 

 enables them to perceive, many of them quit the mine at the end of their month for a 

 more productive one, from which they may have opportunities to steal richer stones. These 

 last are perquisites entering into their calculations to an almost incredible extent, since it is 

 estimated that the amount of cangalla (stolen metal) is at least from three to four per cent, of 

 all the ore broken out. Most of the cangalleros (buyers of stolen metal) reside at Juan G-odoi 

 and Huasco ; and such has heretofore been the integrity observed by these two classes in their 

 dealings with each other, as well as the pertinacious refusal of miners to take employment 

 where they are submitted to such espionage as prevents pilfering., that it has been found indis 

 pensable to wink at both thieving and receiving. The cangalleros, on several of whom it is easy 

 to place one s finger, gather wealth rapidly ; the barretero or apire obtains only enough to 

 drown his compunctions of conscience for an hour or two at most. Of course none but the very 

 richest stones of the vein are stolen. These the barretero breaks out, and the apire may after 

 wards stop and assort, before the administrador sees them. 



Of 1, 750 laborers employed in this district, about one third are Argentines ; the remainder 

 Chilenos, with very few exceptions. From their better knowledge, English miners always find 

 immediate occupation, at high wages, and some few have found their way here. Whether 

 mining induces a disposition to gamble, is a question already suggested, and cannot properly 

 be answered respecting a race who have inherited the passion so strongly as nine tenths of the 

 Hispano- Americans ; though when we hear of the extravagant sums almost daily risked by 

 Copiapinos, and of the multitude of fines imposed on their humbler imitators at the mines, who 

 incur the misfortune of detection in the same offence, it is reasonable to believe that the occupation 

 does have such an influence. Whilst the wealthy in the city win and lose their thousands of ounces 

 ($85,000 in one Jcnoivn case) at a single sitting, and the guardians of the law intentionally over 

 look it, the barretero or apire is instantly arraigned to appease its violated majesty. The Sub~ 

 delegado stated, during a visit made to me, that more than one hundred had been convicted of 

 gambling in the preceding month, and that it was almost the only crime of constant occurrence 

 among the 4,500 people of all classes embraced within his district. At the same time, they are 

 so obedient to the law, that three of the soldiers who form the police had arrested twenty per 

 sons in one group, and brought them before him unresistingly. As an offset to this vice, they 

 possess the most disinterested generosity, and, should his punishment admit such substitute^ 



