“No one is ignorant,” says the intelligent and active prefect, Don Francisco Quiros, in his report to the departmental junta of his jurisdiction of Junin, assembled in Huanuco in 1833,—“No one is ignorant that the richest fountain of our national wealth this day is concentrated in the immense treasures of the mineral of Pasco. Its works, conducted with intelligence and managed with economy, would be more than enough to spread abroad abundance in all the republic, enough to draw towards us the productions of the whole universe, and to increase incalculably the delights and comforts of life. But the fatality which too often persecutes what is good, has plunged us in misery. Avaricious hands, desiring to enrich themselves in a moment, have for years back paralysed our best exertions; and by the indiscreet liberality of our mineral statute, ‘ordenanza,’ permitting the labouring miners to be paid in ore, and thereby violating more and more the principles of subterranean architecture, it would seem that instead of supporting the ample domes with solid pillars, pains had been taken to bring them down. There, as in a sepulchre, our most flattering hopes will be interred, if with a strong hand abuses so enormous shall not be checked,—if a wholesome severity may not be able to restrain the scandalous practice of thieving, as well as the irregular mode of subterranean labour.” The mine labourer can choose for himself, by the laws of the mineral district, one of two sorts of payment. He can have four reals, or two shillings, daily as a fixed hire; or he may choose to retain a certain proportion of the ore, which he breaks down from the mine and carries, (panting loudly under his burden, contained in a leathern bag or _capacho_,) to the surface, where the division takes place by established measure; and the women, with a pot of chicha in hand, eagerly grasped at by the overheated and half-exhausted _capachero_ or carrier, commonly stand by the mouth of the mine to carry home the miner’s share,—a bundle of ore called “mantada.” A common workman’s daily share of metal may be worth a great deal of money, or it may be worth little or nothing. When the former is the case, the mine is said to be in “boya” or “bolla,” namely, a state of rich production, when the common labourer naturally insists upon being paid in metal; and again, when the mine does not produce good ore, or such as pays well, the labourer, who throws away his all on the pageantry of religious festivals and processions, claims his four reals per day’s work, and will have no share in his employer’s bad bargain.