I83S-] CHILIAN MINERS. 247 



being obliged to act and think for themselves, are a singularly intelligent 

 and well-conducted set of men. 



The dress of the Chilian miner is peculiar and rather picturesque. 

 He wears a very long shirt of some dark-coloured baize, with a 

 leathern apron ; the whole being fastened round his waist by a bright- 

 coloured sash. His trousers are very broad, and his small cap of 

 scarlet cloth is made to fit the head closely. We met a party of these 

 miners in full costume, carrying the body of one of their companions to 

 be buried. They marched at a very quick trot, four men supporting 

 the corpse. One set having run as hard as they could for about two 

 hundred yards, were relieved by four others, who had previously dashed 

 on ahead on horseback. Thus they proceeded, encouraging each other 

 by wild cries : altogether the scene formed a most strange funeral. 



We continued travelling northward in a zigzag line ; sometimes 

 stopping a day to geologize. The country was so thinly inhabited, 

 and the track so obscure, that we often had difficulty in finding our 

 way. On the I2th I stayed at some mines. The ore in this case was 

 not considered particularly good, but from being abundant it was 

 supposed the mine would sell for about thirty or forty thousand dollars 

 (that is, 6,000 or 8,000 pounds sterling) ; yet it had been bought by one 

 of the English Associations for an ounce of gold (3/. 8s.}. The ore is 

 yellow pyrites, which, as I have already remarked, before the arrival of 

 the English, was not supposed to contain a particle of copper. On a 

 scale of profits nearly as great as in the above instance, piles of cinders, 

 abounding with minute globules of metallic copper, were purchased ; 

 yet with these advantages, the mining associations, as is well known, 

 contrived to lose immense sums of money. The folly of the greater 

 number of the commissioners and shareholders amounted to infatua- 

 tion ; a thousand pounds per annum given in some cases to entertain 

 the Chilian authorities ; libraries of well-bound geological books : 

 miners brought out for particular metals, as tin, which are not found in 

 Chile ; contracts to supply the miners with milk, in parts where there 

 are no cows ; machinery, where it could not possibly be used ; and a 

 hundred similar arrangements, bore witness to our absurdity, and to 

 this day afford amusement to the natives. Yet there can be no doubt, 

 that the same capital well employed in these mines would have yielded 

 an immense return : a confidential man of business, a practical miner 

 and assayer, would have been all that was required. 



Captain Head has described the wonderful load which the " Apires," 

 truly beasts of burden, carry up from the deepest mines. I confess I 

 thought the account exaggerated ; so that I was glad to take an 

 opportunity of weighing one of the loads, which I picked out by hazard. 

 It required considerable exertion on my part, when standing directly 

 over it, to lift it from the ground. The load was considered under 

 weight when found to be 197 pounds. The apire had carried this up 

 eighty perpendicular 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 

 fpr breath, except the mine is six hundred feet deep. The average 



