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MINERALOGY. 



out their aid, they cannot subsist*. I do not extend my ideas 

 so far ; nor have I the talents requisite for such a task. All 

 that I can do further on this subje6l is, to express my wishes. 



" I could wish, for instance, that the sub-delegates would 

 not allow idle and vagrant Indians in their provinces ; and 

 that those who, after having been once solemnly admonished, 

 should be found to have relapsed into an indolent mode of life, 

 should be apprehended and sent to the mine territories. I could 

 wish (and here I repeat and enforce whatever Egerio has in- 

 sinuated) that those who supply the funds should make their 

 advances in specie, and not in commodities at an exorbitant 

 price, to the end that the miners may be enabled to pay their 

 labourers daily in current money, instead of reducing them to 

 a kind of slavery by an opposite procedure. It is my ardent 

 desire that the miners should be persuaded, how truly it is a 

 paralogism, an egregious mistake, to believe that the Indians 

 are the children of rigour only, and rebels to kind treatment ; 

 and that they should, consequently, a6t with more humanity 

 and charity, when the welfare of this unfortunate class of 

 beings is concerned. 



" Finally, if there be any mineral territories, in the case of 

 which neither the allurements of prompt payment, and of a 

 progressive increase of stipend, nor a wise and courteous treat- 



* In the royal mines, compulsory measures are resorted to. By metas is implied 

 the personal service of the Indians, who, perforce, and respedlively to the number 

 by whom the tribute is paid, are made to repair from different pi ovinces to the mines 

 of Huancavelica and Potosi. If they fail in their personal attendance, a fine of 

 lliirty piastres, named by the Indians faltriqueras, is imposed on them. 



ment. 



