The Carlisle independent., 1910-05-12


 aboye sea level. Two other craters of lesser height rise one on either side of the main crater; then sheer drop of several thousand feet of sul- phur-coated rock to the highest signs of vegeta- ton Below this on the Pacific slopes stretch beautiful rolling llanos or steppes. lower and lower on down to the palm-fringed coast line.
 Somewhere on these immense slopes lies the lost mine of the Indians, "Tisingal" known to and worked by the early Spanish settlers, who changed it's name to La Estrella" or Mine of the Star.
 During the year 1833-34. in going through the archives at Cartago Costa Riea some official doc uments pertaining to this mine were found and permission was obtained from the Costa Rcan government for their publication Shortly there after company was formed in Cartago to send out exploring parties, and although considerable time and money were wasted and several lives lost in an endeayor to locate this mine no indiea- dons of its whereabouts were found.
 Reprints of some of the documents referred to have come into the hands of the writer in which Is preserved the old style Spanish in which they were originally written during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Translations of these pa- pers have been made and the information con- tained therein summarized, to which have been added data obtained through a personal acquant- ance with the country described. During last year an unsuccessful attempt was made by the writer to ascend the highest crater of the Chiri qui volcano for the purpose of verifying certain information purported to have been secured in the year 1905 from this point and pertaining to the Tisingal mine. During the dry season of this year second attempt will probably be made
 Among the documents consulted is one that literally translated reads as follows:
 Within the limits of the department of Chiri qui. contiguous to the Republic of Costa Rica exist places rich in gold, known by the names of Tisingal. Quebrada Ancha Quebrada de Gro and others quite important. The first of these places was explored some time ago by Spanish colony which in the year 1901 founded the city of Con- cepcion de la Estrella near this mine of great wealth. The excessive stingness of the conquer ors reduced the Indians of the locality to the con- dition of slaves they being forced by the Spanish to work, mining the gold of the Tisingal These Indians became tired of the excessive work and bad treatment and became desperate. In the year 1911 they reVolted against their oppressors and exterminated them; but other Spaniards at the place of the mutiny again compelled the Indians to the working of the mine and made harder for them their state of slavery. This al- most eliminated the Indians from this stretch of country.
 "On the twenty-eighth of September some years after these happenings, the Indians turned, and without pity or consideration took the life of every foreigner living in the country and not only this but, carrying stones from dis tant localities they covered up and destroyed all traces of the workings of the mines and they also razed all houses and churches belonging to the Spaniards The only traces remaining of these ancient buildings today are the foundations of the church and bell belonging to it.
 At last the news of the new rebellion reached Cartago in Costa Rica, where immediate prepa- rations were made for revenge. It is known that at the beginning of the year ITO the government at Cartago sent 200 men by the way of Boruca and Tuis to San Jose Cabecar, town to the east about f5 leagues from Conception This expedi- ton took 500 Indians of both sexes prisoners and reduced them to state of slavery, and as such consigned them to the inhabitants around about Cartago upon their return to that place. These prisoners and all other Indians they met along the way were massacred shortly thereafter.
 From that time all Indians living in the mountains in all directions up to a distance of 70 leagues turned bitter enemies of the foreigners and up to few years ago would have nothing to do with the white Due to these events all traces of the villages of Turrialba, Tuis, Atirro. San Jose Cabecar and other places that lay on the route to Conception de la Estrella and Tisin- gal were lost and the trails of communication with the mines were covered with brush and completely destroyed, that after 40 years in Cartago no knowledge was to be obtained as to the locality of the Estrella and practically no person living knew or had seen the mines at