The travellers passed other mining districts, rich in silver and copper. A large portion of the silver which forms the circulation of the world is dug from the range of mountains which they were now crossing, and chiefly from that slope of them which is drained off into the Amazon. Their descent, after leaving the mining country, was rapid. On June 6, we find them at the head of a ravine leading down to the Valley of Tarma. The height of this spot above the level of the sea was 11,270 feet. As they rode down the steep descent, the plants and flowers that they had left on the other side began to re-appear. First the short grass and small clover, then barley, lucern, Indian corn, beans, turnips, shrubs, bushes, trees, flowers, growing larger and gayer in their colors, till the pretty little city of Tarma, imbosomed among the hills, and enveloped in its covering of willows and fruit-trees, with its long lawns of _alfalfa_ (the greenest of grasses) stretching out in front, broke upon their view. It is a place of seven thousand inhabitants, beautifully situated in an amphitheatre of mountains, which are clothed nearly to the top with waving fields of barley. The lieutenant gives an attractive description of this mountain city, whose natural productions extend from the apples and peaches of the temperate zone to the oranges and pine-apples of the tropics; and whose air is so temperate and pure, that there was but one physician to a district of twenty thousand people, and he was obliged to depend upon government for a part of his support.