XVI 
CHILIAN MINERS 
363 
than beasts of burden. This thoughtlessness, as with sailors, 
is evidently the result of a similar manner of life. Their daily 
food is found them, and they acquire no habits of carefulness ; 
moreover, temptation and the means of yielding to it are 
placed in their power at the same time. On the other hand, 
in Cornwall, and some other parts of England, where the 
system of selling part of the vein is followed, the miners, from 
being obliged to act and think for themselves, are a singularly 
intelligent and well-conducted set of men. 
The dress of the Chilian miner is peculiar and rather 
picturesque. He wears a very long shirt of some dark-coloured 
baize, with a leathern apron ; the whole being fastened round 
his waist by a bright-coloured sash. His trousers are very 
broad, and his small cap of scarlet cloth is made to fit the 
head closely. We met a party of these miners in full costume, 
carrying the body of one of their companions to be buried. 
They marched at a very quick trot, four men supporting the 
corpse. One set having run as hard as they could for about 
two hundred yards, were relieved by four others, who had 
previously dashed on ahead on horseback. Thus they pro¬ 
ceeded, encouraging each other by wild cries : altogether the 
scene formed a most strange funeral. 
We continued travelling northward in a zigzag line; 
sometimes stopping a day to geologise. The country was so 
thinly inhabited, and the track so obscure, that we often had 
difficulty in finding our way. On the 12th I stayed at some 
mines. The ore in this case was not considered particularly 
good, but from being abundant it was supposed the mine 
would sell for about thirty or forty thousand dollars (that is, 
6000 or 8000 pounds sterling) ; yet it had been bought by 
one of the English Associations for an ounce of gold (A3 : 8s.) 
The ore is yellow pyrites, which, as I have already remarked, 
before the arrival of the English was not supposed to contain 
a particle of copper. On a scale of profits nearly as great as 
in the above instance, piles of cinders, abounding with minute 
globules of metallic copper, were purchased ; yet with these 
advantages, the mining associations, as is well known, contrived 
to lose immense sums of money. The folly of the greater 
number of the commissioners and shareholders amounted to 
infatuation ;—a thousand pounds per annum given in some 
