Cerro de Pasco

“ The population of Cerro de Pasco presents a motley assemblage of human beings, such as one would scarcely expect to find in a city situated at 14,000 feet above the sea, and encircled by wild mountains. The Old and the New Worlds seem there to have joined hands, and there is scarcely any nation of Europe or America that has not its representative in Cerro de Pusco. ”

“ We found Cerro de Pasco, interesting as its situation is, far short of our expectations. It is a mining town, filled with laborers and speculators, noisy, dirty, and coarse. We had been there less than forty-eight hours when I declared to Harry and Le Mire my intention of returning at once.
"But the Andes!" said Le Mire. "Shall we not see them?"
"Well—there they are."
I pointed through the window of the hotel.
"Bah! And you call yourself a traveler? Look! The snow! My friend Paul, must I ask twice for a favor?" ”

“ The passage of a low, but abrupt chain of hills, brings the traveller in view of Cerro Pasco. The view from this point is a most extraordinary one. I can compare it to nothing so fitly as the looking from the broken and rugged edges of a volcano into the crater beneath. The traveller sees small houses, built, without regard to regularity, on small hills, with mounds of earth and deep cavities in their very midst; the mud chimneys of ancient furnaces, contrasting strikingly with the more graceful funnel of the modern steam engine ”

“ Residence in the Cerro de Pasco is highly disagreeable. The climate is execrable; cold and stormy, with heavy rains and violent falls of snow. Nothing less than the auri sacra fames could have induced such a congregation of human beings, from all nations and corners of the globe, in so inhospitable a latitude. The new-comer with difficulty accustoms himself to the severity of the weather, and to the perpetual hammering going on under his feet, and at night under his very bed, for the mines are worked without cessation. ”

“ They had gone down by rail to Cerro de Pasco for their outfit, that being the town of any size closest to where, according to the map, their trail into the wilderness began. A week later, with eight burros and six arrieros or packmen, they were well within the welter of peaks through which the old map indicated their road lay.
They found the signs cut in the rocks exactly as the parchment had promised. Gay, spirits high with anticipation, three of them at least spending in advance their share of the treasure, they followed the symbols. Steadily they were led into the uncharted wilderness. ”

“ Any person acquainted with minerals and mining coming up to Cerro de Pasco would fancy that the whole town was built on the back of one huge lode; go wherever one may, through the streets, or on the outskirts of the town, and even up to the slopes of the hill surrounding it, he finds it to be all lodestuff everywhere; its composition is what we Cornish miners generally term an iron gossan. ”

“ Turning to the west, one looks back over the long, infinitely varied descent; to the east lie the plateaus and the Andean treasure land. The northern branch of the road continues along almost equally high levels, past the historic plains of Junín on which Bolívar dealt his crushing blow to the viceroy’s army in 1824, to Cerro de Pasco, where the American mining syndicate is preparing to get rich. ”

“ The Urubamba and the Apurimac run parallel along the separate valleys formed between the Occidental and Oriental ranges by the intermediary chain which accompanies them from the Nudo of Vilcanota northward, until the three Cordilleras join again in the Nudo of Cerro de Pasco. ”

“ I have seen quite enough of the mountains to know that our chance of finding anything among them is so small that it is not worth thinking of. It seems to me, therefore, Dias, that we might just as well, instead of going south over these difficult passes, return by the foot of the mountains as we have come, going through Paucartambo, crossing the rivers that flow north and fall somewhere or other into the Amazon, and keeping along it till we come to Cerro de Pasco. ”

“ The houses in Cerro Pasco are generally built of stones and mud, and covered in with tiles or straw; most of them have grates, with mud chimneys, and are plentifully supplied with good coal, both bituminous and hard. ”

“ The uplands of the Andes in Peru contain some of the most thickly-populated parts of the country, notwithstanding their considerable elevation. Here we find capital cities or towns of the various Departments or States at elevation ranging from 8,000 to 13,000 feet above the sea, whilst populous mining centres, such as Cerro de Pasco and others, are at heights up to 14,000 feet. ”

“ This journey can rarely be performed in one day without inconvenience to man and beast, and therefore it is usually divided; and the traveller may put up at the village of Hualliay, or the hacienda of Diezmo,—each of these places [284] being about seven leagues from Cerro Pasco, and separated from one another by a range of low hills, and some very remarkable-looking rocks, near the entrance into the table-land of Bombon, which are usually covered with cattle and fleecy flocks. ”

“ The Andes lose their majestic height to the northward; and beyond Cerro Pasco the eastern chain sinks into a lower range between the Huallaga and Ucayali. But throughout the length of Peru the three ranges are clearly defined.
For purposes of description the sierra of Peru may be divided into four sections, each embracing portions of all three ranges. The first, from the north, comprises the upper basins of the Marañon and the Huallaga, and is 350 m. long by 100 broad. The second extends from the Knot of Cerro Pasco to Ayacucho, about 200 m., including the Lake ofSections of Sierra. ”

“ The drover tells me he is from Ica, bound to the Cerro Pasco mines, where he trades mules for silver. Ica is situated inland from Pisco, on the coast.
Among the mountains, at the top of a dangerous and precipitate pass, there is a wooden cross, erected by the people in the neighborhood. Travellers universally take off their hats as they pass, praying for a safe passage, or feeling thankful for one. The women often decorate these emblems with wreaths of flowers, cross themselves devoutly, and pass on. José begged me to hang the mountain barometer to one arm of the cross. ”

“ As the morning sun gilds the high ridges of this happy valley, its inhabitants are animated to the [40] daily labours of the field by the cheerful voice of the prettily-plumaged inmates of their well-shaded bowers. Such, then, are some of the more prominent beauties and natural advantages of the Vale of Huanuco: and we may here mention, that the city of Huanuco is the principal seat of recreation for him who wastes his strength and frets his temper in the too often delusive pursuit of wealth in Cerro Pasco, and other inclement mining localities in the neighbourhood. ”

“ Fletcher, who has lived a long time in Cerro Pasco, says that a purchaser of the ores (making sure of his guias or experiments on the yield of the ore) can count his gains as easily and certainly as he can the dollars in his pocket; that those men who lose are either the lazy and the careless, or the speculators and lookers after rich ores, to make a fortune at once. The most common and easily obtained ores here are called cascajos. ”

“ People in Huanuco are fully alive to the importance of opening the navigation of the Huallaga to their city. They speak of it as a thing that would be of incalculable advantage to them; and their leaders and influential men have often urged them to be up and doing. But, although they cannot be stirred up to the undertaking themselves, they are jealous of the attempt by any other route. I had a visit this evening from my Cerro Pasco acquaintance, the Intendente of Pozuzu. The old gentleman discoursed long and earnestly about his route from the Cerro to Pozuzu, and thence to Mayro. ”

“ As an individual, the Indian is timid, and he will sooner take a cuff than give one; but, when they assemble for mutual support, then indeed they [156] are seen to fight most valiantly, and like tame oxen, when the blood of one of their number is shed, they all become fearfully courageous. Bold and bloody battles we have seen between strong parties of the native miners in Cerro Pasco, armed for the combat with slings, stones, and clubs. ”

“ At a perpendicular elevation of upwards of two miles and a half, nearly on the snow line of the Andes, stands the topmost city of the earth, Ceno de Pasco. It is the capital of the richest silver district of Peru. At the before-named height, the Andes spread themselves out into vast plains or table-lands. Such table-lands—Punas, the Indians call them—sometimes extend hundreds of miles, and, on one of them—that of Pasco—stands the before-named city of Ceno de Pasco, which I took care to visit when I was a dweller in Peru. ”

“ HISTORICAL AND TOPOGRARHICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE MOUNTAINOUS TERRITORY OF LAURI-COCHA, VULGARLY DENOMINATED PASCO.
Nature, constantly admirable in her combinations, has counterpoised the value of her benefits with the difficulty of acquiring them. ”

“ San Pasqual is such a weather-beaten, sad, abject little town that one might readily experience surprise that the trains even condescend to stop there. It squats in the sand a few miles south of Tehachapi pass, hemmed in by mountain ranges ocher-tinted where near by, mellowed by distance into gorgeous shades of turquoise and deep maroon. They are very far away, these mountains, even though their outlines are so distinct that they appear close at hand. The desert atmosphere has cast a kindly spell upon them, softening their hellish perspective into lines of beauty in certain lights. ”

“ When Pasco seated himself in the chaise beside the solicitor, an expression of satisfaction came over his face. He was returning to Coombe as a man of consequence, and in good society. How the villagers would stare to see him in a carriage drawn by post-horses. An April weather reigned in his heart, now darkening with apprehension, then brightening with pride and self-satisfaction. ”

“ Grass Mountain is used as a lookout station for fires on the Upper Pecos. The world literally lies at your feet. You have all the exaltation of the mountain climber without the travail and labor; for the rangers have cut an easy trail up the ridge; and you stand with the snow wall of the peaks on your north, the crumpled, purpling masses of the Santa Fe Range across the Pecos Cañon, and the whole Pecos Valley below you. Not a fire can start up for a hundred miles but the mushroom cone of smoke is visible from Grass Mountain and the rangers spur to the work of putting the fire out. ”

“ The ascent, commenced almost immediately, is by a ravine—a sort of gorge or chine worn out by the water from the spring-head above and disintegrating rains throughout the long ages. They find it steep as a staircase, though not winding as one; instead, trending straight up from its debouchment on the plain to the summit level, between slopes, these with grim, rocky façade, still more precipitous. Down its bottom cascades the stream—a tiny rivulet now, but in rain-storms a torrent—and along this lies the path, the only one by which the Cerro can be ascended, as the gambusino already knows. ”

“ Ceno de Pasco, although so high up in the world, and so close to the region of eternal snow, has, nevertheless, a tolerable warmth during the day. The nights are all frosty, and a dense fog often envelops the Puna. Excessively heavy rain falls at certain periods of the year. But the most sublime spectacle on the Andes is a thunder-storm. It is an event of frequent occurrence in the table-lands, and I had the good fortune to witness one of extraordinary grandeur. It is impossible to convey any idea of the magnificence of the spectacle. ”

“ Pablo Pasca always broke the news of their destination in rather dramatic style to the gamesters and hangers-on with which these centers of mountain life were crowded.
“Señores,” he would harangue, “you see before you a man sentenced to death; but because no garrote could affect his throat, so hard has it become from drinking gin, the prefect decided to send him on a journey to the Rio Infiernillo! Let us drink to our good fortune!” ”

“ Shortly after leaving the camp the marching redskins lose sight of the Cerro. This is accounted for by a dip in the plain, with a ridgelike swell beyond, which runs transversely to their course. The hollow continues for several miles before the mountain will be again in view; but, well knowing the way, they need not this to guide them. Nor are they in any particular hurry. They can reach their intended halting-place by the lake long ere the sun becomes sultry, there to lie up till the cool hours of evening. So they move leisurely along, and with a purpose—to spare the sinews of their horses. ”

“ Taking a southerly direction, the troops, after leaving Chalco, struck into the recesses of the wild sierra, which, with its bristling peaks, serves as a formidable palisade to fence round the beautiful valley; while, within its rugged arms, it shuts up many a green and fruitful pasture of its own. As the Spaniards passed through its deep gorges, they occasionally wound round the base of some huge cliff or rocky eminence, on which the inhabitants had built their towns in the same manner as was done by the people of Europe in the feudal ages ”

“ The trail Pike followed is thus described by Wislizenus, p. 66: "We started late, and made but 10 miles, to the Cerro Gordo, or el Andabazo creek. Having crossed the mountain, at whose foot San Bernardo lies, we went for a mile through a cañon, with mountains of limestone on both sides, and from there into another valley, watered by the el Andabazo. This considerable creek seems to run from southwest to northeast." The obscure town of Cerro Gordo above named must not be confounded with the place in Vera Cruz which was the scene of the famous battle of Cerro Gordo. ”