Immediately on the alarm, Carvajal used his utmost efforts to get his troops into order and to animate and encourage them to exert themselves against the enemy. At this period, Avendano pointed out Carvajal to a musqueteer who was one of the conspirators, and encouraged him to take a steady aim at the lieutenant-general; but owing to the darkness, the shot missed of its intended effect; and only wounded him in one of his thighs. Finding himself wounded, and being satisfied it had been done by one of his own people, Carvajal deemed it prudent to conceal the circumstance for the present; and retired along with Avendano, of whose fidelity he had no suspicion, on purpose to disguise himself in an old brown coat-and a shabby hat, that he might not be conspicuous, after which he returned to animate his men to defend the camp. Avendano again pointed him out to another conspirator, who fired a second time at Carvajal, but entirely missed his aim. In the meantime the assailants frequently called out to know if Carvajal were dead; but receiving no answer, and finding that all the avenues to the camp were bravely defended, Lope de Mendoza drew off his men. In this night engagement about fourteen were slain on both sides, and several wounded. Carvajal got his wound secretly dressed, so that none of his people knew that such a thing had happened.
After the cessation of the engagement, one Placentia deserted from Carvajal's camp, and informed Mendoza that all the baggage belonging to Carvajal and his troops had been left at a place which he described about five or six leagues from Pocona, among which was a large quantity of gold and silver, several horses, and some musquets and powder. On this information, Meodoza set off immediately with his troops for that place, guided by the deserter; and marching diligently all the remainder of the night, he arrived quite unexpectedly at the place where Carvajal had secured his baggage; but as the night was exceedingly dark, above seventy of his men lost their way and fell behind. Yet, with such of his people as had kept up with him, Mendoza took possession of the whole without any resistance. After this, being sensible that he was not in sufficient force to cope with Carvajal, Mendoza resolved to retreat by way of the desert in which Centeno had formerly taken shelter, which he did accordingly with about fifty men, all the rest of his troops having fallen behind during the night, as already mentioned. In the prosecution of this plan of retreat, Mendoza and his people reached a certain river about two leagues and a half from Pocona, where they halted to take some rest and refreshment after the excessive fatigues of the past night. Carvajal was soon apprised of the capture of his baggage and the route which Mendoza had taken, and immediately set off in pursuit with about fifty of his best mounted troops; and, using every possible diligence, he came to the place where Mendoza had halted, about noon of the next day, and immediately attacked the royalists, some of whom were asleep, while others were taking food. Thus unexpectedly assailed, and believing that Carvajal was followed by his whole force, the royalists made a feeble resistance, and very soon took to flight, dispersing themselves in every direction. Lope de Mendoza and Pedro de Heredia, with a good many others, were made prisoners and Carvajal immediately ordered these two chiefs, and six or seven other principal persons among the royalists to be beheaded.
On this occasion Carvajal recovered the whole of his own baggage, and got possession of all that had belonged to the enemy, with all of which and the prisoners he had made, he returned to Pocona, engaging to do no injury to those who had escaped from the soldiers in the late attack, and even restored their horses arms and baggage to his prisoners, most of whom he sent off to join Gonzalo Pizarro. On leaving Pocona, he took Alfonso de Camargo and Luis Pardamo along with him, who had formerly fled along with Mendoza, and whose lives he now spared, as they gave him information respecting a considerable treasure which Centeno had concealed under ground near Paria, and where in fact he discovered above 50,000 crowns. After this, he went with his troops to the city of La Plata, where he proposed to reside for some time. At this place he appointed persons in whom he could confide to the offices of judges and magistrates, and dispatched intelligence of the success of his arms over the whole kingdom of Peru. He remained for some time at La Plata, where he collected treasure from all the surrounding country, under pretence of supplying Gonzalo Pizarro, but in reality he retained much the larger share for himself.
Having thus succeeded, in all his enterprizes and established his authority in the south of Peru on such firm foundations that no opposition remained in the whole country, fortune seemed to determine to exalt him to the summit of his desires by the discovery of the richest mines which had ever been known. Some Indians who belonged to Juan de Villareal, an inhabitant of La Plata, happening to pass over a very high isolated mountain in the middle of a plain, about eighteen leagues from that city, named Potosi, noticed by some indications that it contained mines of silver. They accordingly took away some specimens of the ore for trial, from which they found that the mineral was exceedingly rich in pure silver; insomuch that the poorest of the ore produced eighty marks of pure silver from the quintal of native mineral25, being a more abundant production than any that ever had been heard of before. When this discovery became known in the city of La Plata, the magistrates went to the mountain of Potosi, which they divided among the inhabitants of their city, setting up boundary marks to distinguish the allotments or each person in those places which appeared eligible for workings. So great was the resort to these new mines, that in a short time there were above seven thousand Yanaconas, or Indian labourers, established in the neighbourhood, who were employed by their Christian masters in the various operations of these mines. These men laboured with so much industry, that each Indian, by agreement, furnished two marks or sixteen ounces of silver weekly to their respective masters; and so rich was the mine, that they were able to do this and to retain an equal quantity to themselves26. Such is the nature of the ore extracted from the mineral veins of this mountain, that it cannot be reduced in the ordinary manner by means of bellows, as is customary in other places. It is here smelted in certain small furnaces, called guairas by the Indians, which are supplied with a mixed fuel of charcoal and sheeps dung, and are blown up by the wind only, without the use of any mechanical contrivance.
These rich mines are known by the name of Potosi, which is that of the district, or province in which the mountain is situated. Owing to the easy labour and great profit experienced by the Indians at these mines, when any of the Yanaconas was once established at this place it was found almost impossible to induce them to leave it or to work elsewhere; and indeed, they were here so entirely concealed from all dangers, and so much exempted from their usual severe drudgery and the unwholesome vapours they had been subjected to in other mines, that they preferred working at Potosi to any other situation. So great was the concourse of inhabitants to Potosi, and the consequent demand for provisions, that the sack of maize was sold for twenty crowns, the sack of wheat for forty, and a small bag of coca for thirty dollars; and these articles rose afterwards to a higher price. Owing to the astonishing productiveness of these new mines, all the others in that part of Peru were speedily abandoned. Even those of Porco, whence Ferdinand Pizarro had formerly procured great riches, were left unwrought. All the Yanaconas who had been employed in searching for gold in the province of Carabaya, and in the auriferous rivers in different parts of southern Peru, flocked to Potosi, where they were able to make vastly more profit by their labour than in any other place. From various indications, those who are most experienced in mining believe that Potosi will always continue productive and cannot be easily exhausted27.
25
This produce is most extraordinarily large, being equal to
26
The gross amount of this production of silver, on the data in the text, is 11,648,000 ounces yearly; worth, at 5s. 6d. per ounce, L. 3,203,200 sterling; and, estimating silver in those days, at six times its present efficacy, worth L. 19,219,200 of modern value. In the present day before the revolutionary troubles, Humboldt estimates the entire production of gold and silver from Spanish and Portuguese America at L. 9,787,500; only about three times the quantity said to have been at first extracted from Potosi alone, and only about half the effective value.-E.
27
It has however become very much exhausted, and has been in a great measure abandoned. The mines of Lauricocha, in a different part of Peru, are now in greater estimation. But those of Guanaxuato and Zacatecas in Mexico, notwithstanding the poverty of their ore, have been long the most productive of the American mines.-E.