The principal people in Puno, during my visit, were General San Roman, in command of the army of the South, an old man with the face and head of a pure Indian, and plenty of white hair brushed off his forehead, who has been mixed up in all the wars since 1822, and from whom I received much information respecting the Indian rebellion of Tupac Amaru in 1780, and of Pumacagua in 1815; Señor Garces, the Prefect; Don Juan Francisco Oviedo; Don Manuel Costas; and Don Manuel Ferrandis, the proprietor of the mine on the Laycaycota hill. Every evening there was a party assembled at the house of the latter to drink coffee, and talk over the news of the day. On these occasions, amongst other topics of conversation, the possibility of forming a company for the navigation of lake Titicaca was frequently discussed. Costas had first been struck by the immense good that steam navigation on the lake would bring to the department of Puno in 1840, and in 1846 he purchased a small steamer called the 'Titicaca,' and had her sent out in pieces. He sold her to the Government, on condition that they would defray the expense of sending her up to the lake; but this was never done. It is considered that any steamers which may hereafter be ordered for this purpose should be about forty tons, drawing four and a half feet, with paddles (as a screw would inevitably foul amongst the rushes), and accommodation for passengers on deck. They would take all the products of the Bolivian forests, bark, timber, chocolate, coca, fruit, and arnotto, to Puno; European manufactured goods, sugar of Abancay, and aguardiente of the coast, from Puno to Bolivia; provisions and traffic of all kinds amongst the Indians of the shores; and copper of Coracora to Puno. Timber in vast quantities might be felled in the forests of Caravaya, and floated down the rivers of Azangaro and Ramiz during the rainy season, which, with the coal on the island of Soto, would furnish supplies of fuel. Markets and easy means of communication having been formed, the trade would rapidly increase on all sides. The face of the country would be entirely changed; the people, finding new wants, would become more civilised; and Puno, instead of a city with empty silent streets, and half a dozen balsas at its anchorage, would be a flourishing and busy port.[144] These bright prospects, however, will require time, and a total change in the political condition of Peru, for their realization in a somewhat distant future.