These men, excepting from accidents, are healthy, and appear
cheerful. Their bodies are not very muscular. They rarely eat meat
once a week, and never oftener, and then only the hard dry charqui.
Although with a knowledge that the labour was voluntary, it was
nevertheless quite revolting to see the state in which they reached
the mouth of the mine; their bodies bent forward, leaning with
their arms on the steps, their legs bowed, their muscles quivering,
the perspiration streaming from their faces over their breasts,
their nostrils distended, the corners of their mouth forcibly drawn
back, and the expulsion of their breath most laborious. Each time
they draw their breath they utter an articulate cry of "ay-ay,"
which ends in a sound rising from deep in the chest, but shrill
like the note of a fife. After staggering to the pile of ore, they
emptied the "carpacho;" in two or three seconds recovering their
breath, they wiped the sweat from their brows, and apparently quite
fresh descended the mine again at a quick pace. This appears to me
a wonderful instance of the amount of labour which habit, for it
can be nothing else, will enable a man to endure.
In the evening, talking with the mayor-domo of these mines about
the number of foreigners now scattered over the whole country, he
told me that, though quite a young man, he remembers when he was a
boy at school at Coquimbo, a holiday being given to see the captain
of an English ship, who was brought to the city to speak to the
governor.
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