ook up his abode amongst them,
"to keep them," he said, "if possible, from indulging in the detestable
vice of drunkenness, which, if not put a stop to, will eventually destroy
themselves, and involve the mining association in ruin." To add to his
troubles, the captain of the miners displayed a very hostile and
insubordinate spirit, quarrelled and fought with the men, and was
insolent to the engineer himself. The captain and his gang, being
Cornish men, told Robert to his face, that because he was a North-country
man, and not born in Cornwall it was impossible he should know anything
of mining. Disease also fell upon him,--first fever, and then visceral
derangement, followed by a return of his "old complaint, a feeling of
oppression in the breast." No wonder that in the midst of these troubles
he should longingly speak of returning to his native land. But he stuck
to his post and his duty, kept up his courage, and by a mixture of
mildness and firmness, and the display of great coolness of judgment, he
contrived to keep the men to their work, and gradually to carry forward
the enterprise which he had undertaken. By the beginning of July, 1826,
we find that quietness and order had been restored, and the works were
proceeding more satisfactorily, though the yield of silver was not as yet
very promising. Mr. Stephenson calculated that at least three years'
diligent and costly operations would be needed to render the mines
productive.

In the mean time he removed to the dwelling which had been erected for
his accommodation at Santa Anna. It was a structure speedily raised
after the fashion of the country.

[Picture: Robert Stephenson's Cottage at Santa Anna]

The walls were of split and flattened bamboo, tied together with the long
fibres of a dried climbing plant; the roof was of palm-leaves, and the
ceiling of reeds. When an earthquake shook the district--for earthquakes
were frequent--the inmates of such a fabric merely felt as if shaken in a
basket, without sustaining any harm. In front of the cottage lay a woody
ravine, extending almost to the base of the Andes, gorgeously clothed in
primeval vegetation--magnolias, palms, bamboos, tree-ferns, acacias,
cedars; and, towering over all, the great almendrons, with their smooth,
silvery stems, bearing aloft noble clusters of pure white blossom. The
forest was haunted by myriads of gay insects, butterflies with wings of
dazzling lustre, birds of brillia