[Footnote 5: In Harris this is said to be _about 1200 feet in length, and 100 in breadth_, which is obviously absurd; as the one measure gives the Spanish yard at 15 English feet, and the latter at 2-1/2 feet. Both measures are probably erroneous; but there are no data for their correction.--E.]
There are gold-mines just beyond the town of Copaipo, and in all the country around, which have attracted many purchasers and workmen to that district, to the great injury and oppression of the Indians; as the Spanish magistrates not only take away their lands for the purposes of mining, but their horses also, which they sell to the new adventurers, under pretence of serving the king and improving the settlements. There is also abundance of magnet and _lapiz lazuli_, of which the Indians know not the value; and some leagues within the country, there is plenty of salt and salt-petre, which often lies an inch thick on the ground. On the _Cordelieras_, about an hundred miles to the east, there is a vein of sulphur about two feet wide, so fine and pure that it needs no cleaning. This part of the country is full of all sorts of mines, but so excessively barren, that the inhabitants have to fetch all their subsistence from the country about Coquimbo, over a desert of more than 300 miles extent, in which the earth abounds so much in salt and sulphur that the mules often perish by the way, for want of grass and fresh water. In that long road there is only one river in the course of two hundred miles, which is named _Ancalulae_ or the Hyporite, because it runs only from sun-rise to sun-set. This is occasioned by the great quantities of snow melted on the Cordelieras in the day, which freezes again by the excessive cold of the night. Hence _Chili_ is said to derive its name, as _chile_ signifies cold in the Indian language; and we are told by the Spanish historians, that some of their countrymen and others, who first traded to this country, were frozen to death on their mules; for which reason they now always travel by a lower road, towards the coast.
The mine countries are all so cold and barren, that the inhabitants have to procure most of their provisions from the coast; this is caused by the exhalations of salts and sulphur from the earth, which destroy the growth of all vegetables. These are so stifling to the Spaniards who dwell about the mines, that they are obliged often to drink the _mattea_, or tea made of the herb _camini_, to moisten their mouths. The mules also, that trip it nimbly over the mountains, are forced to walk slowly in the country about the mines, and have often to stop to take breath. If these vapours are so strong without and in the open air, what must they be within the bowels of the earth in the mines, into which, if a fresh man go, he is suddenly benumbed with pain. This is the case with many, but seldom lasts above a day, and they are not liable to be affected a second time: Yet vapours often burst forth suddenly, by which the workmen are killed on the spot; and one way or another, great multitudes of Indians die in working the mines. One is apt to wonder that, through all this part of the world, those districts which are most barren and unwholesome are the best inhabited; while other places, that seem to vie with our nations of the terrestrial paradise, in beauty and fertility, are but thinly peopled. Yet, when one considers, that it is the thirst of wealth, not the love of ease, which attracts people thither, the wonder ceases, and we see how much the hope of living rich gets the better even of the hope of living; as if the sole end for which man was created was to acquire wealth, at the expence of health and happiness.