1835-1 A STRANGE FUNERAL. 337 



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 geologise. The country was 

 so thinly inhabited, and the track so obscure, that we often 

 had difficulty in finding our way. On the 12th 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, 6000 or 8000 pounds sterling) ; yet it had 

 been bought by one of the English Associations for an 

 ounce of gold (^3, 8^.). 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 in- 

 stance, piles of cinders, abounding with minute globules 

 of metallic copper, were purchased; yet, with these advan- 

 tages, 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 infatuation ; — 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 samt- 

 capital well employed in these mines would have yielded 

 an immense return : a confid(;ntial man of business, a 

 practical miner and arisayer, would have been all that 

 was required. 



