246 



MAKING A PARTY. 



CHAP. XIII. 



be erected, and the ground opened up, when some of 

 the old adits were eventually hit upon. The native 

 peons or labourers were not accustomed to work, and at 

 first they usually contrived to desert when they were 

 not watched, so that very little progress could be made 

 until the arrival of the expected band of miners from 

 England. The authorities were by no means helpful, 

 and the engineer was driven to an old expedient with 

 the object of overcoming this difficulty. " We endea- 

 vour all we can," he says, in one of his letters, " to 

 make ourselves popular, and this we find most effectually 

 accomplished by ' regaling the venal beasts/ ' He 

 also gave a ball at Mariquita, which passed off with 

 eclat, the governor from Honda, with a host of friends, 

 honouring it with their presence. 1 It was, indeed, 

 necessary to " make a party " in this way, as other 

 schemers were already trying to undermine the Colom- 

 bian Company in influential directions. The engineer 

 did not exaggerate when he said, " The uncertainty of 

 transacting business in this country is perplexing be- 

 yond description." In the mean time labourers had been 

 attracted to Santa Anna, which became, the engineer 

 wrote, " like an English fair on Sundays : people flock 

 to it from all quarters, to buy beef and chat with their 

 friends. Sometimes three or four torros are slaughtered 

 in a day. The people now eat more beef in a week 

 than they did in two months before, and they are 

 consequently getting fat." 2 



1 During his short residence on the 

 Colombian table-land, Mr. Stephen- 

 son made the acquaintance of several 

 native families of distinction. Nor 

 did his connexion with them alto- 

 gether cease upon his return to Eng- 

 land ; for when he went over the 

 scenes of his youth at Killingworth 

 with the author, in 1854, he was ac- 

 companied by a young gentleman, 

 then learning engineering in the New- 

 castle factory, the son of one of the 



gentlemen whose friendship he had 

 formed during his American residence. 

 2 Letter to Mr. Illingworth, Septem- 

 ber 25th, 1825. The reports made to 

 the directors and officers of the com- 

 pany, which we have seen, contain 

 the details of the operations carried 

 on at the mines ; but they are as dry 

 and uninteresting as such reports 

 usually are, and furnish no materials 

 calculated to illustrate the subject of 

 the text. 



