1835.] CHILIAN MINERS. 327 



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 volun- 

 invy, it was nevertheless quite' revolting to see the state in which 

 they reached 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 remembers 

 when he was a boy at school at Coquimbo, a holiday being 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 impressed with an 

 idea of the heresy, contamination, and evil to be derived from 

 contact with such a person. To this day they relate the atrocious 

 actions of the bucaniers; and especially of one man, who took 

 away the figure of the Virgin Mary, and returned the year after for 

 that of St. Joseph, saying it was a pity the lady should not have a 

 husband. I heard also of an old lady who, at a dinner in Coquimbo, 

 remarked how wonderfully strange it was that she should have 

 lived to dine in the same room with an Englishman; for she 



