Puno, the capital of the department, owes its origin and former prosperity to the rich veins of silver-ore in the surrounding country. It is approached, from the north, by a stone archway built over the road by General Deustua, who was prefect in 1850; and the streets slope by a gradual descent towards the lake. The houses are built of small-sized brown _adobes_, with roofs of thatch or red tiles, and courtyards very neatly paved with round pebbles and llama's knuckle-bones in patterns. There are scarcely any with more than a ground-floor, and the rooms open on to the court; but, though at this elevation, 12,874 feet above the sea, it is extremely cold at night, stoves are unknown; and the unusual luxury of a fireplace, which exists in one house, is merely a luxury to the eye, for it is never lighted. The streets are clean and well paved, and the stone church in the _Plaza_, dating from 1757, has an elaborately carved front and two towers. In another plaza is the college, a large building with an upper story, also built by General Deustua; and both these public squares have bronze fountains erected by the Government of General Echenique, the late President, besides drinking fountains in the corners of several of the streets. The water is excellent. Puno is surrounded by heights covered with patches of potatoes, barley, and quinoa (_Chenopodium quinoa_), the huts of Indians being interspersed amongst them; and immediately over the town there is an isolated rocky ridge of carboniferous limestone perforated by several natural caverns, called the Huassa-pata. The shores of the lake are a few hundred yards from the town, and at the little port there are always a number of balsas, made of large bundles of reeds tied together, with a reed sail.[132] The view to seaward is, however, confined by the peninsula of Capachica, and two islands at the mouth of the bay of Puno. A canal to enable balsas to come up nearer the town was made by the Spanish Intendente Gonzalez Montoya in the beginning of the present century.[133]