284 PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA. 



tain/' said a rich possessor of mines with whom we had 

 arrived^ "stands there like an enchanted castle (como si 

 fuese un Castillo encantado)." The Gualgayoc reminds the 

 beholder in some degree of a cone of dolomite, but still more 

 of the ^serrated crest of the Monserrat Mountains in Cata- 

 lonia, which I have also visited, and which were subsequently 

 described in so pleasing a manner by my brother. The 

 silver mountain Gualgayoc, besides being perforated to its 

 summit by many hundred galleries driven in every direction, 

 presents also natural openings in the mass of the siliceous 

 rock, through which the intensely dark blue sky of these 

 elevated regions is visible to a spectator standing at the foot 

 of the mountain. These openings are popularly called 

 "windows," "las ventanillas de Gualgayoc." Similar 

 " windows" were pointed out to us in the trachytic walls of 

 the volcano of Pichincha, and called by a similar name, 

 " ventanillas de Pichincha." The strangeness of the view 

 presented to us was still farther increased by the numerous 

 small sheds and dwelling-houses, which nestled on the side 

 of the fortress-like mountain wherever a flat surface permitted 

 their erection. The miners carry down the ore in baskets 

 by very steep and dangerous paths to the places where the 

 process of amalgamation is performed. 



The value of the silver furnished by the mines in the first 

 thirty years (from 1771 to 1802) amounted probably to 

 considerably above thirty-two millions of piastres. Notwith- 

 standing the hardness of the quartzose rock, the Peruvians, 

 before the arrival of the Spaniards (as ancient galleries and 

 excavations testify), extracted rich argentiferous galena on 



