Enterprise and Adventure/A Ship in the Mountains
A SHIP IN THE MOUNTAINS.
In the year 1826, Messrs. Rundell and Bridge, an eminent firm of jewellers in London, purchased the gold mines of Tipuani and the emerald mines of Illimani in Peru, determining to work them for their own profit by an agent to be established there. These mines were situated on the banks of the Lake Chiquito, which is two hundred and fifty miles long and one hundred and fifty miles broad, and the country around was wild and desolate, abounding in rugged and impenetrable mountains, and in sandy and sterile plains. To this region Messrs. Rundell and Bridge, dispatched a gentleman named Page, who speedily organized a plan for working the mines by means of the wild tribes of Indians, who were almost the sole inhabitants of that lofty region; but the difficulty of feeding so large a body of workmen as was required was very great. The only vegetable produce of the district was a species of red potato and a few edible plants; though to the east of the great lake at Copacasana, and in the valley of Bolivia, were cultivated maize, barley, and fruit-bearing trees. No vessels, however, existed on the lake except canoes, which did not venture to cross its stormy waters, and to reach these sources of food-supplies by land in a rugged country without roads, was scarcely practicable. At a short distance from Tipuani were other productive mines belonging to General O'Brien and an Englishman named Begg, and to these gentlemen Mr. Page suggested the idea of jointly constructing a vessel for the navigation of the lake.
The project was a difficult one. The lake was actually situate at eighteen thousand feet above the level of the sea, and neither shipwrights nor appliances for shipbuilding could be obtained in those parts; but Mr. Page determined to overcome these obstacles. Having returned again to Arica on the sea-coast, he purchased in that port an old brig stripped of her anchors, sails, and rigging, and he succeeded, with extreme difficulty, in conveying the hull to the Apolambo, a river whose waters fall into the Lake of Chiquito. Thither he also brought some ordinary carpenters, who built a rude kind of stocks, and, after two years of almost unceasing labour, they succeeded in launching their vessel on the lake, thus opening a regular communication with the more fertile regions of the opposite shore. By this means the Indians, and all others connected with the settlement, were thenceforth abundantly supplied with food, the brig sailing well, and being well provided with everything save anchors, which it was found impossible to convey to such a height. Thus, for the first time, a vessel fully equipped was seen by the astonished Indians floating on the waters of Lake Chiquito, in the centre of which is the island mentioned by their traditions as the cradle of Peruvian civilization and the sacred burial-place of their ancient kings.