1835.] CHILIAN MINERS. 341 
be 197 pounds. The apire had carried this up eighty perpen- 
dicular yards,—part of the way by a steep passage, but the 
greater part up notched poles, placed in a zigzag line up the 
shaft. According to the general regulation, the apire is not 
allowed to halt for breath, except the mine is six hundred feet 
deep. The average load is considered as rather more than 200 
pounds, and I have been 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 
voluntary, 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. ach 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 remem- 
bers 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 
