From Huaypacha we cross the river Jauja, over a soga-bridge of the same sort of materials with another at Oroya formerly described.[30] The next day’s ride, of about the same length with the preceding, is made over hilly pasture-ground to Tucto by Pucara,—the latter place, now in ruins, being once a famous mining establishment belonging to Don Pedro Arriarte, the great miner of Peru. At Tucto several Indian huts, and some of them of ridiculously small dimensions, are to be seen near the road; but lower down, and situated near a lake at the base of the Cordillera, is a mining estate in good order, though its mines in these latter times have proved ruinous to the miner. The soil around this estate is of a yellowish tint, and is said to abound in gold (a gold mine being also close to the house); and the stones by the road-side are, in numerous instances, covered with crusts of iron pyrites, which impart to them a beautiful appearance, such as, in the imagination of many unacquainted with mineralogy, may serve to give a very flattering idea of the golden treasure of this place. On the heights of Tucto, to the extent of about half a league along the Cordillera, the surrounding rocks appear like vast masses of rusty iron, which, however, when a specimen is taken up and broken, presents the character of porphyry; but, as we proceed onward towards the summit of the Cordillera, no rocks are to be seen on the acclivity along which we travel, except we look high up, where, in form of mouldering projections, they rise amidst the débris which covers this part of the Cordillera down to the verge of the lakes beneath. The mule-road is a sort of track across the flank of this mass of loose and shuffling fragments, which consist of porphyry, and extend a considerable way towards Antacona, or the ruins of a mining village so called, on the very highest ridge of this mountain-pass. From the extent of the vestiges of industry still remaining, and the ruins of human dwellings seen among the weather-beaten cliffs, we may infer that these mines, like many others, abandoned for want of proper hydraulic machinery, at one time yielded useful metals and rich returns. On the Antacona side of the pass there is no appearance of permanent snow, for here, as on the plains, though it fall, it soon melts away; but just opposite, parallel to the line of road, and only separated by a marshy hollow in which several little lakes are contained, there are mountains or summits perpetually covered with snow of great depth, and the marsh and lakes just mentioned are supplied by rills which descend from the snow. At the mouths of the mines of Antacona, which are interspersed among rocks of porphyry or porphyritic green-stone, a great quantity of rubbish, extracted at a remote period from under ground, is to be seen. Among this rubbish there appears a large quantity of iron pyrites with quartz, and there is also a considerable quantity of loose