XVI CHILIAN MINERS 363 



than beasts of burden. This thoughtlessness, as with sailors, 

 is evidently the result of a similar manner of life. Their daily 

 food is found them, and they acquire no habits of carefulness ; 

 moreover, temptation and the means of yielding to it are 

 placed in their power at the same time. On the other hand, 

 in . Cornwall, and some other parts of England, where the 

 system of selling part of the vein is followed, the miners, from 

 being obliged to act and think for themselves, are a singularly 

 intelligent and well-conducted set of men. 



The dress of the Chilian miner is peculiar and rather 

 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 pro- 

 ceeded, 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 : 8s.) 

 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 instance, piles of cinders, abounding with minute 

 globules of metallic copper, were purchased ; yet with these 

 advantages, 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 



