almost one hundred leagues, and the most thickly peopled land is around its shore; in the middle of the lake there are two islets, and on one of them is a mosque and house of the sun which is held in great veneration, and to it they come to make their offerings and sacrifices on a great stone on the island which they call Tichicasa[113] which either because the devil hides himself there and speaks to them or because of an ancient custom, or on account of some other cause that has never been made clear, all the people of that province hold in great esteem, and they offer there gold, silver and other things. There are more than six hundred Indians serving in this place, and more than a thousand women who make chicha in order to throw it upon that stone Tichicasa.[114] The rich mines of that province of the Collao are beyond this lake [in a region] called Chuchiabo.[115] The mines are in the gorge [caja-chiusa] of a river, about half-way up the sides. They are made like caves, by whose mouths they enter to scrape the earth, and they scrape it with the horns of deer and they carry it outside in certain hides sewn into the form of sacks or of wine-skins of sheep-hide. The manner in which they wash it is that they take from the river a [jet?][116] of water, and on the bank they set up certain very smooth flag-stones on which they throw the water, after which they draw off by a duct the water of the [jet?] which has just fallen down [upon the gold-earth?], and the water carries off the earth little by little so that the gold is left upon the flag-stones themselves, and in this manner they collect it. The mines go far into the earth, one ten brazas, another twenty, and the greatest mine, which is called Guarnacabo[117] goes into the earth some forty brazas.[118] They have no light, nor are they broader than is necessary for one person to enter crouching down, and until the man who is in the mine comes out, no other can go in. The people who get out the gold here are as many as fifty,[119] counting men and women, and these are all of this land, and from one cacique come twenty, from another fifty, from another thirty, and from others more or less according to the number that they have, and they take out gold for the chief lord, and they have taken such precautions in the matter that in nowise can any of what is taken out be stolen, because they have placed guards around the mines so that none of those who take out the gold can get away without being seen. At night, when they return to their houses in the village, they enter by a gate where the overseers are who have the gold in their charge, and from each person they receive the gold that he has got. There are other mines beyond these, and there are still others scattered about through the land which are like wells a man's height in depth, so that the worker can just throw the earth from below on top of the ground. And when they dig them so deep that they cannot throw the