PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA. 405 



lie scattered like nests over the fortress-looking mountain 

 wherever a level spot admits of their erection. The miners 

 carry the ore in baskets, down steep and dangerous footpaths, 

 to the places where it is submitted to the process of amalga- 

 mation. 



The value of the silver obtained from the mines ofGualgayoc 

 during the first thirty years of their being worked, from 1771 

 to 1802, is supposed to have amounted to upwards of thirty- 

 two millions of piastres. Notwithstanding the hardness of the 

 quartzose rock, the Peruvians, even before the arrival of the 

 Spaniards, extracted rich argentiferous galena from the Cerro 

 de la Lin, and also from the Chupiquiyacu ; of this fact many 

 old shafts and galleries bear evidence. The Peruvians also 

 obtained gold from the Curimayo, where also natural sulphur 

 is found in the quartz rock as well as in the Brazilian Itaco- 

 lumite. We took up our temporary abode, in the vicinity of 

 the mines, in the little mountain town of Micuipampa, situated 

 at an elevation of 11,873 feet above the sea, and where, 

 though only 6 43' from the equator, water freezes within 

 doors, at night, during a great part of the year. This wil- 

 derness, almost devoid of vegetation, is inhabited by 3000 or 

 4000 persons, who are supplied with articles of food from the 

 warm valleys, as they themselves can grow nothing but some 

 kinds of cabbage and salad, the latter exceedingly good. Here, 

 as in all the mining towns of Peru, ennui drives the richer inha- 

 bitants, who, however, are not the best informed class, to the 

 dangerous diversions of cards and dice. The consequence 

 is, that the wealth thus quickly won is still more quickly spent. 

 Here one is continually reminded of the anecdote related of 

 one of the soldiers of Pizarro's army, who complained that he 

 had lost in one night's play, "a large piece of the sun," 

 meaning a plate of gold which he had obtained at the 

 plunder of the Temple of Cuzco. At Micuipampa the ther- 

 mometer, at eight in the morning, stood at 34. 2, and at noon, 

 at 47. 8 Fahrenheit. Among the thin Ichhu-grass (possibly 



