Some two hundred and fifteen years ago, according to the legend, a small pampa that lies south-east from Lake Lauricocha, the mother of the mighty river Amazon, an Indian, Hauri Capcha by name, tended his master's sheep. Having wandered one day to an unusual distance from his hut, he sought shelter from the cold under a rock, and lighted a large fire. The following morning he saw to his astonishment that the stone beneath the ashes had melted and become pure silver. He joyfully informed his employer, a Spaniard of the name of Ugarte, of this singular circumstance. Ugarte hastened to the place, and found that his shepherd had lit upon a vein of silver ore of extraordinary richness, of which he at once took possession, and worked it with great success. This same mine is still worked, and is known as _la Descubridora_, the discoverer. Presently a number of persons came from the village of Pasco, two leagues distant, and sought and discovered new veins. The great richness of the ore and the increase of employment soon drew crowds to the place--some to work, others to supply the miners with the necessaries of life; and thus, in a very brief time, there sprung up a town of eighteen thousand inhabitants. The ground whereon Cerro de Pasco is built is a perfect network of silver veins, to get at which the earth has been opened in every direction. Many of the inhabitants work the mines in their own cellars; but this, of course, is on a small scale, and there are not more than five hundred openings meriting, by reason of their depth and importance, the name of shafts. All, however, whether deep or shallow, are worked in a very senseless, disorderly, and imprudent manner--the sole object of their owners being to obtain, at the least possible expense, and in the shortest possible time, the utmost amount of ore. Nobody ever thinks of arching or walling the interior of the excavations, and consequently the shafts and galleries frequently fall in, burying under their ruins the unfortunate Indian miners. Not a year passes without terrible catastrophes of this kind. In the mine of Matagente, (literally, Kill-people,) now entirely destroyed, three hundred labourers lost their lives by accident. For incurring these terrible risks, and for a species of labour of all others the most painful and wearisome, the Indians are wretchedly paid, and their scanty earnings are diminished by the iniquitous truck system which is in full operation in the mines as well as in the plantations of Peru. The miner who, at the week's end, has a dollar to receive, esteems himself fortunate, and forthwith proceeds to spend it in brandy. The mining Indians are the most depraved and degraded of their race. When a mine is in _boya_, as it is called, that is to say, at periods when it yields uncommonly rich metal, more labourers are required, and temporarily taken on. When this occurs in several mines at one time, the population of Cerro de Pasco sometimes doubles and trebles itself.