twenty, and the
greatest mine, which is called Guarnacabo[117] goes into the earth some
forty brazas.[118] They have no light, nor are they broader than is
necessary for one person to enter crouching down, and until the man who
is in the mine comes out, no other can go in. The people who get out the
gold here are as many as fifty,[119] counting men and women, and these
are all of this land, and from one cacique come twenty, from another
fifty, from another thirty, and from others more or less according to
the number that they have, and they take out gold for the chief lord,
and they have taken such precautions in the matter that in nowise can
any of what is taken out be stolen, because they have placed guards
around the mines so that none of those who take out the gold can get
away without being seen. At night, when they return to their houses in
the village, they enter by a gate where the overseers are who have the
gold in their charge, and from each person they receive the gold that he
has got. There are other mines beyond these, and there are still others
scattered about through the land which are like wells a man's height in
depth, so that the worker can just throw the earth from below on top of
the ground. And when they dig them so deep that they cannot throw the
earth out on top, they leave them and make new wells.[120] But the
richest mines, and the ones from which the most gold is got, are the
first, which do not have the inconvenience of washing the earth, and,
because of the cold, they do not work those mines more than four months
of the year, [and then only] from the hour of noon to nearly
sunset.[121] The people are very mild, and so accustomed to serve, that
all that has to be done in the land they do themselves, and so it is, in
the roads and in the houses which the chief lord commands them to build,
and they continually offer themselves for work and for carrying the
burdens of the warriors when the lord goes to some place [in the
region]. The Spaniards took from those mines a load of earth and carried
it to Cuzco without doing anything else. It was washed by the hand of
the Governor after the Spaniards had sworn that they had not placed the
gold in it or done anything to it save take it from the mine as the
Indians did who washed it, and from it three pesos of gold was got. All
those who understand mines and the getting of gold, being informed of
the manner in which it is got in this land, say that all the