The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-02-16

SlIGdlllS. IlHdIIO anu HIS lIlGl SSl eAS natives at work to collect more, and the work has been going on ever since. Then came the Portuguese, who were so successful that the Spaniards got jealous of them and drove them away. The result is that the placers were all mined out long ago. It is very hard prospecting, also, as the streams are swift and the mountain sides rough and very steep.
 "There are rich silver mines there, but they are very high up, 17,000 feet or more, and the air is so rare that a white man cannot work, and the work is done by Indians. The native Peru vians work very little, making the h. dians do their work. know of only one successful mine as low down as 650O feet. There is very little show, too, for a man to find employment in other directions than mining, for he must come into competition with. the Indians, who are poorly paid.
 "The native Peruvians are the laziest people you can imagine. They not only make no provision for next week, but none even for the next day, meal ahead being about the extent of their solicitude. Time is no object to them, and they pay very little attention to it. They do not like foreigners, and delay and discourage them in every possible way. It does not make much difference whether they are Americans, English or German-they are all gringoes' to the Peruvians, as they are to his Mexi- can brethren and he dislikes them all. This may be partly because they annoy 1; 1,xyt tI,air. o1,6 O him up out of his lethargy too much to suit him.
 with thousands of cattle he has no milk or butter, drinking black coffee | and living out soup twice a day, pota- | toes and dried mutton. If they can get this meal they let the next one take care of itself. They have herds of | llamas horses, mules and alpacas, but the horses and mules are inferior, the only good ones coming from Argentina, where the European stock has been brought in. There are many fiocks of sheep and they contribute largely to the welfare of the inhabitants.
 "The grass of the country is a rough sort of wire grass, like this. It grows in punches, some of them as much as four feet across and does not look as if it was of much account for food for animals, but 1t makes first-rate mutton and beef.
 Harry Meiggs Is about the only American that has ever done we'll in Peru, and do not know how he ever managed to get so good a show given to him, they dislike strangers so. He built good road and it is considerably used, but it seemed funny to me how they run their trains. A train runs three times week to the Titicaca basin, and it takes It's time. It runs to Areguipa and then stops for the night
 The next morning 1t starts again and runs all day, stopping again at night
 and takes three days to get to the basin.
 ''On the Pacific side it is a dry, rain- less region, but on the Amazon side il rains nearly every day. When one gets up into the Cordilleras, itis all right as long as the sun is up, but in the night it gets very cold. had very hard work to find transportation, and my expert
 ence illustrates the character of the people. When you have gone as far as the railroad will take you, you must
 get mules to go further, and there is the rub. If you get mules their own
 CT will agree to take you a certain dis
 tance, but he will take you no further
 nor will he give you reason for his
 refusal to do so. After I arrived al
 the end of the railroad was sixteer
 days trying to get mules before I sue
 ceeded. The superintendent of mine . who did me many great favors, after
 some days of entreaty persuaded at ricf
 Peruvian to send his mules to take nit ! one hundred and fifty miles, but he
 would not take me bit further, and had to wait there sixteen days longer before obtained more mules. There i: no use of fretting, for it does not do { particle of good, and money is no ob . ject to such people
 'When you arrive at town tn, Gobernador must be seen He take you to his house, where there is plent. of room, and you can get all the sup
 plies you need in the shape of fooc
 from him by paying well for it. o
 course, he is in no hurry to have vol go, and only diplomacy starts you ol your journey again, for he takes hi time to help you.
 l "As I said before, there is very littl show for white man. There is noth , ing left in mining that is worth talkin,
 about. I know of one mine where
 whole lot of money has been invested but they only strike gold in pockets
 The Incas mined the country, and afte them came the Spaniards and Portu guese, and they have pretty wei cleaned up the ground. There is littl 5 left, except in the very high attitudes
 where even the natives can do liitl and employ the Indians to do thei
 work. White men will do well to giv
 the country a wide birth"
 5 Mir. Johns is man of much nor
 than average intelligence and does no look like a man who is easily discour aged. He will soon be on his road Alaska when the spring opens, to tr
 for better luck there.-The Sacrament :. Record-Union.