Page 195
An.1685
The Gold Mines of Santa Maria
abundance of Iron Crows and Pickaxes. Thefe were Inftruments for the Slaves to work in the Gold Mines ; for befides what Gold and Sand they take up together, they often find great lumps, wedg'd be- tween the Rocks, as if it naturally grew there. I have feen a lump as big as a Hens Egg, brought by Cap- tain Harris from thence, (who took 120 pound there) and he told me that there were lumps a great deal bigger : but thefe they were forc'd to beat in pieces that they might divide them. Thefe lumps are not fo folid, but that they have crevifes and pores full of Earth and Duft. This Town is not far from the Mines, where the Spaniards keep a great many Slaves to work in the dry time of the year: but in the rainy feafon when the Rivers do overflow, they cannot work fo well. Yet the Mines are fo nigh the mountains, that as the Rivers foon rife, fo they are foon down again ; and prefently after the rain is the beft fearching for Gold in the Sands: for the violent rains do wafh down the Gold into the Ri- vers, where much of it fettles to the bottom and re- mains. Then the Native Indians who live here- abouts get moft; and of them the Spaniards buy more Gold than their Slaves get by working. I have been told that they get the value of 5 Shillings a day, one with another. The Spaniards withdraw moft of them with their Slaves, during the wet feafon, to Panama. At this Town of St. Maria, Captain Townley was lying with his Party, making Canoas, when Captain Gronet came into the Seas; for it was then abandoned by the Spaniards.
There is another fmall new Town at the mouth of the River called the Scuchaderoes: It ftands on the North fide of the open place, at the mouth of the River of St. Maria, where there is more air than at the Mines, or at Santa Mara Town, where they are in a manner ftifled with heat for want of air.
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