INTRODUCTORY. 



33 



on each side ; and " to turn the course of the river at these parts, so as to 

 get at its bed, would be about as easy a task as to remove the Andes." 



Pimentel supposes that from the time of the discovery, in June, to the 

 date of his letter, in November, about one hundred thousand dollars 

 had been collected ; but that the best parts had been worked, and such 

 success was no longer to be looked for. He says, moreover, that the 

 difficulty of obtaining provisions and supplies is very great, from the 

 small ifumber of persons engaged in agriculture, the general laziness of 

 the people, and the difficulty of transportation. 



It is quite evident that Pimentel is disposed to throw difficulties in 

 the way, and to distract attention from Challuhuma by dwelling upon 

 the undiscovered riches in other valleys, and the great vegetable wealth 

 of the country a little to the eastward of it. Other accounts from 

 this district give a different version, and represent Pimentel as a party 

 in one of the mining companies, and interested in keeping secret the 

 true state of affairs. The quarrel on this subject ran very high in 

 the department of Puno, and even the motives and conduct of General 

 Deustua, then prefect of the department, and now governor of the 

 " Provincia Littoral" of Callao — a man of the very highest standing and 

 character in his country — were impugned. He vindicated his reputation 

 in a very spirited letter to the Secretary of State for the Treasury De- 

 partment, demanding to be relieved, and receiving an apologetic reply 

 from the government. 



It appears from some notices of this country, written by Manuel 

 Hurtado, a citizen of Puno, "that the province of Carabaya has an 

 extent of one hundred and eighty miles, from north to south, 

 rendered more to the traveller, who wishes to pass over its whole 

 length, on account of his having to cross the spurs of the mountains, 

 which divide the whole country into valleys, having auriferous streams ; 

 for, from Cuia to Quica, there are eighteen miles ; to Sandia, forty-two ; 

 to Cuyo-Cuyo, twelve ; to Patambuco, eighteen ; to Phara, thirty-six ; 

 to Uricayas, forty-five ; to Coasa, eighteen ; to Thiata, thirty ; to Aya- 

 pata, eighteen ; to Ollachea, forty-two ; and to Corani, eighteen ; making 

 three hundred and seven miles. All these villages, except the last, are 

 in the line of the edge of the Montana. The villages of Macusani and 

 Crucero are on this other side of the Cordillera. The population of the 

 province is thirty thousand souls, over and above strangers, who come 

 to collect the gold and cascarilla. 



"The exportation of the products of the province for the last year 

 were about three hundred thousand pounds of cascarilla, twenty-five 

 thousand baskets of coca, (of twenty-one pounds each,) and one thousand 

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