We see the Pasco miners always in the midst of riches, and always embarrassed: they are kept in a state of continued tantalization. The miner, it is true, sometimes has immense and rapid gains, in spite of rogues and plunderers everywhere about him, at comparatively little expense of time or money; and this occasional success leads others to indulge in a hope of similar good fortune, which hurries the majority of speculators in this channel into pecuniary difficulties: for, as we have seen, the necessary outlay is often great without any compensation; and when the capital is too limited, though in the main the undertaking be a good one, ruin is near. Shopkeepers and dealers in plata-piña are tempted, by prospects of commercial advantage, to lend money to the harassed mine-owner to enable him to forward his works, and to repay the loan in piña[2] at so much per marc. Such a lender is called “habilitador:” but it unluckily happens for this capitalist that, by the custom and usage of the miner, the last “habilitador” has a claim to be first paid, which leads to the worst practical results. The miner is generally a reckless gambler, who spends money as fast as it comes to him, not in improving his mines, but in indulging his vices; and in this manner the interest of the first habilitadors may be successively postponed to the claims of the most recent, who frequently is disappointed in his turn; while the difficulties of the miner are not removed, but merely prolonged, and he is involved in everlasting disputes and litigation. The risk, expense, and delay occasioned at all times, and more particularly in days of civil broil, by the necessity of forwarding the bars of silver from Pasco to Lima for the purpose of coinage, are felt as so many real grievances by the miner; and it is known that these causes, with the desire to avoid the payment of the established duties, have led to a contraband trade across the by-ways of the mountains to the coast, which no number of custom-house officers could prevent, even on the extravagant supposition of their being proof against bribery and corruption. The evils attendant on the existing arrangements led the legislature to pass a law for the establishment of a mint at the mines of Pasco; but this desirable object has not yet been carried into effect in a proper and efficient manner, though we understood that the prefect Quiros employed a native tradesman to erect some rude machinery by which a few hundred dollars were thrown off daily.