VISIT TO A GOLD MINE. 347 



■and in others shafts are sunk until they strike the vein. 

 The first opening we visited was a side-cut four feet 

 wide, and penetrating two hundred and forty feet be- 

 fore it struck the lode ; but it was so full of water that 

 we did not enter. Above it was another cut, and 

 higher still a shaft was sunk. We descended the shaft 

 by a ladder made of the trunk of a tree, with notches 

 cut in it, until we reached the vein, and followed it with 

 a candle as far as it was worked. It was about a yard 

 wide, and the sides glittered — but it was not with gold ; 

 they were of quartz and feldspar, impregnated with sul- 

 phuret of iron, and gold in such small particles as to be 

 invisible to the naked eye. The most prominent ob- 

 jects in these repositories of wealth were naked work- 

 men with pickaxes, bending and sweating under heavy 

 sacks of stones. 



It was late in the afternoon when I came out of the 

 shaft. Don Juan conducted me by a steep path up the 

 side of the mountain, to a small table of land, on which 

 was a large building occupied by miners. The view 

 was magnificent : below was an immense ravine ; above, 

 perched on a point, like an eagle's nest, the house of 

 another superintendent ; and on the opposite side the 

 great range of the mountains of Candelaria. I waited 

 till my mules came up, and with many thanks for his 

 kindness, bade Don Juan farewell. 



As we continued ascending, every moment the view 

 became more grand and beautiful ; and suddenly, from 

 a height of six thousand feet, I looked down upon the 

 Pacific, the Gulf of Nicoya, and, sitting like a bird 

 upon the water, our brig, La Cosmopolita. And here, 

 on the very highest points, in the wildest and most beau- 

 tiful spots that ever men chose for their abodes, were 

 the huts of the miners. The sun touched the sea, light- 



