In The
Mountains There Are Veins Of Earth Of Various Colours, And Mines Both Of
Gold And Silver, In Which The Natives Are Exceedingly Conversant, And Are
Even Able To Melt And Purify These Metals With Less Labour And Expence
Than The Christians.
For this purpose they construct furnaces in the
mountains, placing always the door of the furnace towards the south, as
the wind blows always from that point.
The ores are put into these
furnaces alternately with dried sheeps dung, which serves as fuel, and by
means of the wind the fire is raised to a sufficient power to melt and
purify the metal. In melting the vast quantities of silver which has been
dug from the mines of Potosi, the furnaces constructed with bellows were
found quite inefficient, while these furnaces, named _guayras_ by the
Indians, which signifies wind-furnaces, answered the purpose effectually.
The soil is everywhere extremely fertile, and gives abundant returns of
all the kinds of grain which are there sown; insomuch that from one bushel
of seed for the most part at hundred bushels are reaped, sometimes an
hundred and fifty, and even as high as two hundred. The natives employ no
ploughs, but labour the earth with a kind of hoes; and set their seed into
the ground in holes made with a dibble, or pointed stick, just as beans
are sown in Spain. All kinds of pot and garden herbs grow so luxuriantly
that radishes have been seen at Truxillo as thick as a mans body, yet
neither hard nor stringy.
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