Haunts of the Condor in Peru. 279 



shelly, and sandy desert. No fresh, water can be got by 

 digging, so water for drinking is distilled from that of the 

 ocean, and food is supplied principally from Chile. The history 

 of this place — its hospitality, customs, and manners — would 

 make a curious and interesting chapter, the more particularly 

 as its rapid growth has been the consequence of the discovery 

 of nitrate of soda in the adjacent region. 



The writer of the present paper, with his old and valued 

 friend, Don Jorge, when there, in 1826, superintending the 

 working of a silver mine at Huantajaya, were the only foreign- 

 ers in the province. These mines, like the majority in this dis- 

 trict, are in the desert mountains of the coast, at an elevation 

 of from 3000 to 6000 feet high, where there is neither moisture 

 nor vegetation. Water had to be brought to them from a dis- 

 tance of thirty miles, in bags made of sheep-skins ; and this 

 journey through a broiling sun did not tend to increase the 

 palatableness of the liquid. 



Water for the use of man being so scarce, it was at times 

 next to an impossibility to allow it to animals ; and the writer 

 has often had to trudge on foot from Iquique to Huantajaya, 

 which, although only seven or eight miles, is a most fatiguing 

 journey, over a burning plain, up a wearisome sandy ascent, 

 along the base of the high escarped mountain range, and finish- 

 ing with a grand tug up the " caracol," or zig-zag road, the 

 summit of which is nearly 2000 feet above the level of the sea, 

 with yawning chasms and jagged peaks on either side. The 

 track then goes along a most desolate-looking route, covered 

 with patches of salt in cakes and nodules, and sun-incinerated 

 stones; and to the left, among other ranges, is that of the silver 

 mountain of Huantajaya, sometimes called the Potosi of Peru.* 



The silver produced from 1726 to 1826 was worth about fif- 

 teen millions of pounds sterling. Since 1826, and in conse- 

 quence of labour being diverted to the extracting, refining, and 

 carrying the nitrate of soda to the coast, the annual yield has 

 fallen to about six thousand pounds. The mines of Santa 

 Rosa, within sight of Huantajaya, have likewise afforded consi- 

 derable supplies of the same metal. 



The ordinary route from the mines down to the coast is not 

 difficult, most of it being an easy descent ; but there is a " short 

 cut" by the Lomas of Guantaca, and very much steeper than the 

 other. It was by the former that Don Jorge and myself arranged 

 to go to Iquique, our object also" being to explore the country 

 and behold the reported " panizos," or indications of metallic 

 veins in the mountains. 



So, one morning, each with his alforjas, or saddle-bags, 

 containing a gourd full of water and some " provend/' slung 

 * The original Potosi is in Bolivia, 



