Chap. XIT. GOLD REGION. 205 



the rich lavaderos or gold-washings of Caravaya ;^ and his 

 successor, the Prince of Esquilache, wrote a long report upon 

 them in 1620. It appears that, at that period, the richest of 

 the Caravaya mines was called Aporuma, and that it had then 

 been worked for fifteen years by a company of adventm-ers. 

 These men, the chief of whom were named Quinones, 

 Frisancho, and Perez, had excavated very extensive works 

 to drain off the water, and they petitioned the Viceroy to 

 grant them a mita of Indians to complete the works, for that 

 thus the royal fifths would be augmented. The Prince of 

 Esquilache wrote a marginal note, which may still be seen on 

 the original petition, ordering Don Pedro de Mercado, the 

 " visitador-general " of Caravaya, to grant them a mita of 

 Indians within a circuit of twenty leagues of the Aporuma 

 mine, Avith three dollars a month each, besides salt-meat and 

 other provisions.^ In 1678 the yield of the royal fiftlis from 

 the Caravaya gold-washings was at the rate of 806 dollars in 

 three months.^ From this time to tlie end of the seventeenth 

 century Franciscan missionaries were at work amongst the 

 wild Chunchos in the forests of Caravaya.* Towards the end 

 of the last century Caravaya was separated from Peru to 

 form part of the new viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres, and the 

 population of whites and civilised Indians was then only 

 estimated at 6500 souls. Just before that period the to^^^^ 

 of San Gavan, with four thousand families and a large 

 treasure, had been surprised and entirely destroyed by the 

 Carangas and Suchimanis Chimchos. This calamity took 

 place on the 15th of December, 1767. The viceroy Don 

 Manuel Amat swore vengeance on the Chunchos ; but his 

 famous mistress, Mariquita Gallegas, better known as La 



1 Memorlas de los Vireyeo, i. p. 36. I ^ lielacion del Comle de Castellar, 



- Memorial decosastocanteis las minas p. 222. 

 de Caravaya. J. 58, p. 441. A very ■• Relacion del Obispo Melchor Lii'ian 

 illegible manuscript in the national y Cisiieros, p. 299. 

 library at Madrid. 



