MINING IN SOUTH AMERICA. 293 



ipost all the old mines. They were all tried ; but, 

 generally speaking, they were all abandoned, be- 

 cause they did not pay, and with little inquiry into 

 the cause, the reason assigned was, the want of 

 intelligence and capital ; and people, frustrated in 

 this object, and incapable of contending with the 

 difficulties which impeded any step towards civil- 

 ization in the insulated, remote, and almost imprac- 

 ticable situations in which they often found them- 

 selves, yielded to the habits of indolence in which 

 they still exist. 



If the above rough and imperfect description of 

 the mines of South America is deemed correct in 

 its general features, it will account for a phenomenon 

 which, in visiting several deserted mines, I was for 

 a long time totally unable to comprehend. 



In many places we found lodes worked to con- 

 siderable depths, but the lode so small, and the 

 assay so poor, that the constant remark of the 

 Cornish captains who accompanied me was, " that 

 there must have been something got out of the mine 

 which they could not see, or else it could never 

 have paid."" Besides this, the country was barren, 

 and there were often many other local disadvan- 



