112 



GOLD WASHINGS. 



consume ten thousand quintals of cinchona bark per annum. We con- 

 sider this a very low estimate. 



The ba^ik at La Paz has for some years past received as much as 

 fourteen thousand quintals per annum, and the government of Bolivia 

 issued a decree or proscription, forbidding the gathering of this bark from 

 the 1st January, 1852, until the 1st January, 1854. 



Gold was found in Yungas more than two centuries ago. The gold 

 mines and washings of Tipuani are worked with some profit in the 

 present day, but the wealth of the people engaged in gold hunting does 

 not compare with that of former times. Hundreds of Indians were em- 

 ployed, turning the Tipuani stream from one side of its bed to the other 

 in the dry season, and large quantities of gold were collected. Seven 

 goldmines are at present worked in Yungas, and five hundred have been 

 abandoned. 



The roads to Tipuani are narrow, precipitous, and in an unimproved 

 state, like most of the roads into Yungas. They require an annual ex- 

 penditure of money, after the rainy season, to put them in order. 



Merchants pay wages in advance to the Indians who consent to enter 

 the mines, and provide them with provisions, which are carried in on 

 mules. The expenses are very great in comparison to the yield of gold. 

 The Indian is often sick, when his wages and the expense of feeding him 

 are lost to the miner ; many of them leave before their time, so that the 

 work of the season is lost, the miner giving up poorer than he com- 

 menced. 



Besides gold, there are silver mines in Yungas abandoned, filled with 

 water. They are situated higher up than the gold mines along the 

 eastern sides of the Andes. This- side of the Madeira Plata is made of 

 silver, washed with gold, filled with oranges, pine apples, granadillos, 

 bananas, beautiful flowers, and rich green leaves, refreshed and kept in 

 perfection by the sheets of ice and clusters of white snow resting on its 

 edge. Streams of clear water, habited by fish, flow through the # lofty 

 forest trees, turning and winding among the hills, while the fish-hawk 

 perches himself on the overhanging branch to watch them. The parrot, 

 with his green leaf-like plumage, winks an eye as he digs his curved 

 beak into the banana. The monkey helps himself to oranges ; the hum- 

 ming bird feeds upon the product of the flowers. All are employed, 

 joyful, and happy. Their songs echo through the hills, and die away 

 among the dashing streams ; but the ferocious tiger shows his teeth as 

 he turns aside, snarling at the sight of the forked tongue of a dangerous 

 serpent. 



At the rising of the moon, swarms of bats fill the air, and insects float 



