Note 48 — Chapter I · NICARAGUA: BOUNDARIES, TOPOGRAPHY, LAKES, RIVERS, PORTS, CLIMATE, POPULATION, PRODUCTIONS, MINES, ETC., ETC.

An English traveller, named Byam, who seems to have visited Nicaragua for mining purposes, states that the silver mines which he observed “were fine, broad, but rather irregular veins, the ore combined with sulphur and lead. The ore is hard, but clean.” The copper ores, he informs us, “are almost all uncombined with sulphur, or any other combination which requires calcining to be got rid of. They may all be smelted in a common blast furnace, with the aid of equal quantities of iron-stone, which lies in large quantities on the surface of all the hilly country. They are what the Spanish miners call ‘metal de color,’ red and blue oxides and green carbonates, with now and then the brown or pigeon-breasted. They cut easily and smoothly with the knife, and yield from twenty-five to sixty per cent. The copper veins are generally vertical, and the larger ones run east and west.” This writer has the following references to the gold washings of the country:

“Some adventurers, generally of the very lowest class, both in manners and morals, proceed to the auriferous streams, that run through the south part of the Honduras nearest to Segovia, for two or three months during the driest part of the year, and when the rains have entirely subsided. Their baggage is very light, and easily carried on a donkey or half-starved mule, for they only provide each for himself and his female helpmate a small load of Indian corn, barely enough for the pair, some tobacco, a small stone for grinding the corn, an earthen pan or two, a hatchet, and a small leathern bag to put the gold in when found. They also take a few half gourds dried, to wash the earth in, and a grass hammock to sleep in, and away they start, driving their animals before them, each man carrying his machete or short heavy broad-sword, and some, bows and arrows. The part of the country is almost uninhabited, and on their arrival at the different streams, they generally separate, and each pair chooses a spot often miles apart, where they commence operations. The first thing is to build a ‘Ramada,’ or hut of branches, as the name signifies; but they always select a place where two good-sized trees are near enough together, to enable them to swing their hammocks between them. With a few poles and branches with the leaf on, a hut is made in two or three hours; the man then makes a pile of dry wood near at hand, and leaves the entire care of the household to the woman, who grinds the corn, and every day makes a few cakes, looking like thin pancakes, which are toasted on a flat earthen pan over the wood ashes. Their drink is a little maize meal and cacao nut ground together, mixed with water and stirred up in a gourd; and thus the pair vegetate for two or three months, supported by the hopes of living well for the remainder of the year. The man is always within sight of the hut, in case assistance be wanted in such a wild spot; and he digs holes into the ground near the stream, and after having piled up a heap of earth close to the water, washes it in the half gourds, when, after repeated changes of water, and the spot chosen having proved a good one, a little fine gold dust is often visible in the gourd. It requires a great deal of nicety to balance the gourd backwards and forwards, up and down, and round about, so as to get rid of the earth; and it is still more difficult, at the last washing, to manage to leave the gold altogether, at the very end of the remaining deposit, which is generally of a black or dark grey color. The grains of gold are often large enough to be picked out after one or two washings, and often of a size to be discerned whilst digging, and a man in good luck may find enough gold in a week to keep him comfortably the whole year; but money easily got generally soon goes; and on the return of the lucky pair to their town, it is too often quickly spent in gambling and low debauchery.”