1835.] CHILIAN MINERS. 



be 197 pounds. The apire had carried this up eighty perpen- 

 dicular yards, part of the way by a steep passage, but the 

 greater part up notched poles, placed in a zigzag line up the 

 shaft. According to the general regulation, the apire is not 

 allowed to halt for breath, except the mine is six hundred feet 

 deep. The average load is considered as rather more than 200 

 pounds, and I have been assured that one of 300 pounds (twenty- 

 two stone and a half) by way of a trial has been brought up from 

 the deepest mine ! At this time the apires were bringing up the 

 usual load twelve times in the day ; that is, 2400 pounds from 

 eighty yards deep ; and they were employed in the intervals in 

 breaking and picking ore. 



These men, excepting from accidents, are healthy, and appear 

 cheerful. Their bodies are not very muscular. They rarely 

 eat meat once a week, and never oftener, and then only the hard 

 dry charqui. Although with a knowledge that the labour was 

 voluntary, it was nevertheless quite revolting to see the state in 

 which they readied the mouth of the mine ; their bodies bent 

 forward, leaning with their arms on the steps, their legs bowed, 

 their muscles quivering, the perspiration streaming from their 

 faces over their breasts, their nostrils distended, the corners of 

 their mouth forcibly drawn back, and the expulsion of their 

 breath most laborious. Each time they draw their breath, they 

 utter an articulate cry of " ay-ay," which ends in a sound rising 

 from deep in the chest, but shrill like the note of a fife. After 

 staggering to the pile of ore, they emptied the " carpacho ;" in 

 two or three seconds recovering their breath, they wiped the 

 sweat from their brows, and apparently quite fresh descended 

 the mine again at a quick pace. This appears to me a wonderful 

 instance of the amount of labour which habit, for it can be 

 nothing else, will enable a man to endure. 



In the evening, talking with the mayor-domo of these mines, 

 about the number of foreigners now scattered over the whole 

 country, he told me that, though quite a young man, he remem- 

 bers when he was a boy at school at Coquimbo, a holiday beintr 

 given to see the captain of an English ship, who was brought to 

 the city to speak to the governor. He believes that nothing 

 would have induced any boy in the school, himself included, to 

 have gone close to the Englishman ; so deeply had they been 



