The Santo Domingo Mine 1896-1914**

Some time in 1896, Allie [Allen Crosby] Hardison's uncle Wallace Hardison, an oil man who was one of the founders of the Union Oil Company, and who always had his ear to the ground listening for something good, had learned of an oil prospect in the Republic of Peru, and had gone down with a drilling crew to examine it. After drilling one oil well there, he came to the conclusion that the pay streak of oil extended under the ocean rather than into the country, so gave up any idea of developing the property. It so happened, however, that while he was in Lima  he met a man who had been a member of President Castro's cabinet, who claimed to have a very rich mining claim in Carabaya  province, and persuaded him to go there and look it over.

This was something of an undertaking, involving two nights and a day on the steamer, a journey of about a day and a quarter on the railroad from Arequipa, and some two or three days on horseback in the mountains, followed by several days' journey on foot. However, taking his nephew young Chester Brown  with him, W. L. Hardison  went in to look at the property. The horseback journey began at an elevation of about 12,000 feet and took them up the side of a mountain and across the summit of the Andes at about 17,000 feet elevation, then dropping down on the east side to cross a tributary of the Amazon, the Inambari ; the trail then following a small stream which flowed into the Inambari. About six miles up that stream they passed a mining operation being carried on by a native Peruvian who had developed a property discovered by Indians. The claim was said to be exceptionally rich; but opportunities for developing it seemed rather doubtful, as the facilities for extracting the ore were rather poor, and in the second place it was just too far from civilization. However, the owner had built a little four-stamp mill, 450 pound stamps and was crushing some ore each day; and the ore being rich he was taking out quite a bit of money.

The property which W. L. Hardison  had come to see was some two or three miles beyond this mine, and over another ridge. He went on there, but was not long in making up his mind that the property was of questionable value; and thereupon promptly went back over the mountain to the mine which they had seen in operation, which was owned by a man named Velasco, who had as his partner a man named Estrada. Mr. Hardison inspected the ore which they were milling, and realized that the property was indeed very rich. Before he left he had bought the mine: had executed an agreement with Velasco for the purchase of the property and had given him a draft for the first payment. He then returned to the United States to raise the money to pay for the property, the purchase price being $350,000.00. It was while he was in California promoting this venture that his nephew Allie  Hardison became interested. Allie  was doing fairly well in Santa Paula, as a Director of the Limeonira Company and Vice-President of the Santa Paula Water Works, but his income was not unduly large, and it did not look to him as if he were going to have as good an opportunity as he would like to enlarge it. So when his uncle offered him the chance to go to South America, he jumped at it.

It was no light undertaking, to penetrate into such a wild and undeveloped region, and the question was at once raised as to whether Mrs. [Cora] Hardison and the children should be allowed to accompany him. The matter was discussed at length with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson Crane. They were naturally not happy at the prospect of being separated from their daughter and their two grandchildren; but Mr. Crane admitted that if he were a young man in Allie  Hardison's place he would want to go; and reminded his wife that one of the first things he and she had done after their marriage had been to move from Ohio out to California. Her parents not voicing any extreme objections to her going, and she herself being all for it, the matter was soon settled. Cora Hardison  kept to herself the fact that she was pregnant!

California to New York

The usual route to South America was of course from San Francisco and down the west coast; but Mr. Hardison discovered that by going via New York and the Panama Canal, and then down the west coast of South America, he could save ten days' travel time, at no extra cost. So on Tuesday, May 19, 1896, Mr. and Mrs. Hardison, with their children (Helen aged two and one-half, and Warren, aged about seventeen months) boarded a train for the east. The following Monday morning they arrived in Bradford, Pennsylvania, where they spent a few pleasant days visiting the family of C. P. Collins , one of the large shareholders in the mine. Reaching New York, Mr. Hardison settled his family in a Fifth Avenue Hotel and himself went forth to purchase books and office supplies for the new Inca Mining Company; also various surveying instruments and firearms. The Hardisons were joined in New York by Mr. J. K. Gries, who was going with them just for the trip; and Mr. and Mrs. Chapman and a Mr. Emery, who were employees of the Company. A maid having been found to care for the children, the party devoted what time there was at their disposal to sightseeing: visiting such attractions as Central Park, the Zoo, Brooklyn Bridge, and the Statue of Liberty. One evening Mr. Gries and Mr. Hardison visited the Cuban Fair. "There, to my astonishment," records Mr. Hardison in his diary, "I found a source for a very large amount of the financial aid rendered the Cuban Revolutionists. Solicitations were openly made for the avowed purpose of purchasing arms and munitions of war!" So much for Cuba in 1896!

New York to Panama

Passage had been booked for the party on the steamship Advance, due to sail for Colon at noon on June the first. The morning of departure proved a harrowing one for Mr. Hardison. Not wishing to pay excess baggage rates on his rather extensive New York purchases, he had determined (against the advice of the Steamship Company) to send them by freight. There was from the outset considerable trouble and delay; and not until the morning the vessel sailed did he succeed in obtaining a bill of lading for the goods. A visit to the Peruvian Consul had elicited a promise from the latter that he would be at the pier before the vessel sailed and deliver the consular manifest. Sailing time neared. The consul duly put in an appearance, but without the manifest—his clerk was bringing it! Sailing time arrived. The hawser was cast off. The "Advance" began to move slowly from the pier. At that exact moment a breathless clerk from the consulate arrived with the manifest. The consul seized it from his hand, rolled it in a newspaper, and flung the paper on board just as the vessel was passing out of reach. A superstitious man might have construed this hectic last-minute incident as a not-too-good omen for the success of the trip. But Mr. Hardison was never superstitious.

Staterooms on the ship were comfortable; the sea was calm; and the seven days' journey to Colon was enjoyed by everyone on board except Mrs. Hardison. She, poor woman, became seasick as soon as the vessel got under way, and remained so until the party landed in Colon. The ship did not make port between New York and her destination, but the travelers were afforded a glimpse of the Bahamas, early one morning; had later a fair view of Haiti; and about ten o'clock one evening saw a light which they were told was on the island of Cuba.

The Advance reached the pier at Colon about ten in the morning. As the train for Panama did not leave until mid afternoon, the travelers had plenty of time to transfer their luggage in leisurely fashion, admire the great bronze statue of Christopher Columbus given by the French to the Columbian government, and wander briefly through the wide grass-grown streets of the old town. All were struck by the simplicity of the natives' dress: the men wore hat, shirt and pants; the younger children, nothing. Fire had recently destroyed part of the town, including the old market. However, a shelter had been put up, under cover of which the visitors found every conceivable kind of merchandise offered for sale. The humid heat was not conducive to bargaining, though, or to any kind of exertion, and all were glad when it came time to board the train.

Once on board, the party made prompt and unfavorable comparisons with the accommodations to be found on American railroads. Their car was well filled with natives, all of whom seemed to have brought along food with them to relieve the monotony of the journey. Most of the young people were provided with bundles of short stalks of sugar cane which they chewed incessantly. The trip did prove interesting, though, especially to the men: for crossing the Canal they were able to see many evidences of the work of the French in building it. There were literally hundreds of apparently discarded flat cars on sidings which extended into the tropical undergrowth; also many shelters containing French locomotives, some of which looked to have been properly maintained but others which seemed to be rapidly going to pieces in that tropical climate. There were also many dredges and steam shovels, apparently abandoned. In his diary, Mr. Hardison commented: "I was astonished at the number of dump cars, locomotives, steam shovels, etc., going to decay. Every few miles we would come across a yard containing several hundred dump cars, a stable containing twenty to forty pony locomotives, a few steam shovels, etc., a few iron bridges ready built intended to be placed across the canal. The amount of machinery going to waste is simply stupendous."

Arriving in Panama, the Hardisons' immediate concern was to get to the Hotel Grand Central as soon as possible and obtain good accommodations. Mrs. Hardison and the children got into a gurney cab hauled by a tiny pony, and Mr. Hardison tipped the driver to get them to their destination in a hurry. The pony was on the gallop all the time, but the rate of progress was so slow he seemed to be just jumping up and down. The streets were narrow, and jammed with vehicles of all sorts; the car tracks were close to one side of the street, so that the edge of the car would be about even with the sidewalk. The Hardisons' cab got behind a street car, and they thought they were never going to get by. However, they finally did, by the simple expedient of going up on the sidewalk. Arriving at the hotel ahead of the rest of the party from the boat they got what they thought an acceptable room opening on to an iron verandah. Sanitary facilities proved execrable, however; and at night they had considerable trouble with the beds. There were two or three single beds in each room. The mattress on each bed was a spring affair, very high in the center and with exceedingly stiff springs. Unless you were heavy enough to compress these springs it was almost impossible to stay on top. Little Mrs. Hardison finally just pulled the mattress off her bed to the floor and slept on the floor.

Food served in the hotel dining room was edible, but not particularly tempting. There were very few vegetables served, and several meat courses appeared at each meal. There was no refrigeration in Panama in those days, and meat killed at night was served the next morning and the next day, fresh. Service in the dining room was rather casual, too. When one of the waiters came in with a dish of baked potatoes, and dropped some of them on the floor, he simply reached over, picked them up, put them back on the plate, and served them to the customers. On the last morning, urged by Mr. Chapman, the party all went for breakfast to a French hotel which was cracked up to be of very high class. Hot cakes were on the menu and looked quite inviting, so everyone ordered them. Of course there was molasses and butter to go with them. When the hot cakes were served, Mr. Chapman was all smiles. He reached over and helped himself to a generous supply of butter, added some syrup, and started to eat. His first mouthful was his last, though. The butter was strong enough to stand by itself. So that was the sad end of breakfast at the French hotel.

Panama to Peru (Mollendo)

From the hotel the party went directly to the steamer Puno which was to take them to Mollendo, Peru. They were to be on board this steamer for eleven days, and Mrs. Hardison was looking forward to the trip with considerable apprehension. Fortunately, though, the sea was like glass all the way, and she was seasick only the first few hours. Aboard ship, the party were given five good meals a day, which was, as Mr. Hardison remarked dryly, enough to keep them going. Warren, then eighteen months old and at the crawling stage, provided one moment of excitement when he crawled through the railing surrounding the ship's deck and was discovered having a good time out on the unfenced landing platform; but otherwise the voyage as far as Guayaquil was uneventful.

The Puno did not enter the Gulf of Guayaquil until very late on the afternoon of Sunday, June 14, much to the disappointment of the travelers, who had hoped to have a glimpse of the city before dark. Mañana being the watchword of the country, they were not permitted to land until the following day. The land around the Gulf was low and swampy, covered with a heavy growth of tropical vegetation. A customs official came on board the ship near the entrance to the Gulf, and remained on board until her departure. Moreover, apparently as a precaution against smugglers, there was a guard boat rowing about the ship all night. At the mouth of the Guayaquil River, the passengers were told was a sand bar which the ship could cross only at full tide. And at low tide there were acres of mud flats exposed.

As soon as the ship docked, the men of the party went ashore to explore the town. Mr. Hardison and Mr. Chapman took a horse car and rode out to one of the public baths, located on a tidal arm of the Guayaquil River. They described this facility as "nothing better than a decent American hog wallow" and declared their plunge to have been a "mud bath"; but said they had enjoyed it, none the less. At evening the ship weighed anchor, and made her way down the river against an incoming tide and heavy wind, halting at the mouth of the river to let off the customs officer, and then continuing an uninterrupted way to Paita, which she reached Tuesday morning. Before their arrival, a Pennsylvania oil man on board ship who knew the country well very solemnly warned Mr. Hardison, "Now, you must be careful here. I warn you, don't attempt to cut or remove anything that's green in Paita." With these words in mind, the party went ashore and looked nervously about for greenery; but the only green things visible in the entire town were some recently painted benches. There was nothing whatever growing—perhaps not surprising in view of the fact that the town had absolutely no water. Every drop of water had to be brought in on mule back, to be sold at so much a gallon.

Leaving Paita, the ship next anchored off Eten, some forty-two miles south, where the passengers had the exasperating experience of having to remain on board an entire day, with nothing to look at but the wharf, a "cut" with almost perpendicular sides through which the trains approach the wharf, and the unedifying spectacle of a number of large-horned cattle being loaded two tiers deep in lighters and brought out to the ship, where a rope would be slipped over an animal's horns, hitched on to the tackle, and up the animal would come. Everyone heaved a sigh of relief when the ship put out to sea again, but this mood proved somewhat premature. Twenty-three miles farther on, at a little place called Pacasmaya, they spent another such day, taking on board an additional 110 head of cattle, none of which, as someone commented, would have anything to eat or drink until they came to Lima, many hours away. Yet another day of weary watching was in store for the passengers before they approached Callao; but finally, on Saturday, June 20, they reached this port, about 2:30 p.m. They remained there only two hours before taking the train to Lima, six miles distant.

They spent three days in Lima ; and one afternoon Mr. and Mrs. Hardison went to the bull fight, both of them finding it a spectacle well worth seeing, although Mrs. Hardison did say that she never wanted to see another! Out into the big arena came a rider with a saddle of silver, whose horse was decked with silver mountings. This horseman's skill was remarkable. The bull made repeated attempts to gore the horse; he came within an inch of it; but he never quite succeeded. Following this exhibition of horsemanship on one side and frustrated rage on the other, in came some toreadors to play with the bull and goad him further. Finally, he was killed, with one clean stroke.

The journey from Lima to Mollendo  took two nights and a day. At Mollendo the ship could not be taken right up to the mole or wharf. It anchored out about a quarter of a mile, and the passengers had to ride from the ship to the mole in a rowboat, a trip proving more adventurous than anything they had yet encountered. In the first place the rowboat headed straight for some rocks, not swerving aside until everyone was sure they were going to be wrecked; then, on reaching the mole the men found it necessary to jump from the heaving boat on to the ladder just at the peak of a wave or else they would get drenched. The women of the party had then what was perhaps a brief foretaste of the terrors in store for them on the journey, being forced to step from the tossing boat and take their places in turn in a boatswain's chair and be hoisted up to the mole.

Mollendo to Arequipa

The Hardisons remained in Mollendo  only about six hours; then boarding a train for the uninterrupted four hours' interesting ride to Arequipa , a town at an elevation of about 7,500 feet. They passed over switchbacks and through the country of the marching sand dunes: a wide stretch dotted with big crescent-shaped mounds of sand which move a few feet each year. Whenever they reach the railway track it is quite a problem to keep the track open, as the blowing wind constantly carries the sand over. In Arequipa they were met by W. L. Hardison , his son Guy , W. L.'s brother-in-law Mr. Moriarty, Mr. Charles Brown , and Paul Youngling of Santa Paula. They went up to the native hotel and found comfortable quarters for the night. There was a severe earthquake that night in Arequipa, but the Hardison party were too tired to care very much. Fortunately no great damage was done.

Arequipa to Puno province

From Arequipa they proceeded by train over a range of mountains to Juliaca , a city on the altiplano at an elevation of over 12,000 feet, at the junction of the railroad that goes on north to Cuzco, and within twelve miles of Puno*  and Lake Titicaca . At Juliaca the travelers discovered that the train from Arequipa ran only two days a week, so the men left the women and children at the hotel (left them, as matters turned out, for a stay of six weeks!) and hired a couple of Indians with push cars to take them up the line to Santa Rosa , about forty miles away. Mrs. Hardison and Mrs. Chapman and the two children of course had no company at the hotel; but the Superintendent of the Railway, Pat Hawley, an American, lived across the plaza. He had two children about the age of Helen and Warren, and Mrs. Hardison was very glad indeed to be able to spend her afternoons in Mrs. Hawley's kindly company.

With the Indians pushing the cars up the grade and riding them down grade, W. L. Hardison  and his nephew finally reached Santa Rosa. The railroad station at that point was about half a mile from the village, but the men found accommodations for storing their stuff, and got ready for a trip into the interior to the County Seat. Being joined in Santa Rosa by their attorney, a native Peruvian, they headed for the cabin where they expected to arrange for the judge (a juis de primer a instancia) to come to the house and give them possession of their new property. Methods of acquiring title to land in South America were quite different from what they are in the U.S. When they got to Macusani , the capital of the Province, however, they found that the owners of the property had, under the law of the land, ordered a resurvey of the property, and in that resurvey had left out practically all the property they had bought, all of the mine that was of any value!

Well, they argued with the owner of the property, and argued with the judge, and argued with their attorney, but without getting anywhere. In the interval they had been joined by their Chilean mining engineer, who had been educated at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York. He spoke perfect English and thoroughly understood the customs of the Peruvians; and after debating the matter rather hurriedly, the Hardisons had to admit that legally the owners of the property had the advantage over them, and could cheat them out of the property. They therefore decided to go and take physical possession of it. The journey from Macusani into the mine required about two days on horseback and three days on foot. When they got in there, Velasco, the owner of the property, called together all the miners. (He had a lot of Chilean and Hungarian miners.) Each tunnel on the rich vein of the mine had a door to it, and Velasco had the keys to each door. He made a speech to the miners telling them that he had sold the property, and he then and there delivered the keys to W. L. Hardison ; Allie  standing by his uncle as they were handed over. This gave W. L. Hardison  possession of the property; and Velasco told the miners that from now on they would be working for Mr. Hardison and not for Estrada and himself. With that kind of title, W. L. Hardison  took possession of the mine and continued to hold it. Of course he could not at once get a government title. He had trouble about that; in fact it took him nearly two years to straighten matters out. However, in the meantime, he was working the mine.

At the end of six weeks W. L. Hardison  came out from the mine and went to Arequipa ; and it was arranged that Mrs. Hardison, Mrs. Chapman and the children should go into the mine with him. The day following his return they set out in the afternoon in a handcar pushed by Indians for Tirapata , where horses and mules were to be procured. About half a mile out of Juliaca, W. L. discovered that he left behind in Juliaca  the money (5,000 soles) which he was supposed to be bringing into the mine; but fortunately in the meantime Mr. Hawley had discovered the money and had sent it after the party by an Indian whom he trusted. Coming into Tirapata about nine o'clock they learned that A. C. Hardison  had unexpectedly made the trip out of the mine to meet them and had been down to the station looking for them; and not finding them, had gone on to a farmhouse about a mile away to find something to eat and a place to sleep. There was no building at the station, but there were two box cars; and the party crowded into one of these to spend the first night; later going on to the farmhouse to spend a few days while a packer and pack animals were being rounded up.

Crossing the Cordillera

Woman & childThe morning of the third day the party were at last ready to start; much to the relief of W. L. Hardison , who was exceedingly anxious to be off, fearing an early appearance of the rainy season, which would render travel into the mine impracticable. The caravan consisted of about a dozen pack mules carrying clothing, blankets, and various camp necessities, and several riding animals. The question arose as to how Mrs. Hardison and Mrs. Chapman would travel. There were two mounts available: a fine-looking saddle horse and a mule. Mrs. Hardison was an accomplished horsewoman; Mrs. Chapman didn't know a thing about riding. However, Mrs. Chapman liked the look of the horse and wanted to ride it, so Mrs. Hardison said she would take the mule. Actually, though Mrs. Chapman did not realize it, the mule was much the safer of the two animals to ride, as it was familiar with the type of country they were to go through, and knew how to handle itself.

The mountain trail wound steeply upward, until at last at an elevation of about 17,000 feet it crossed the Andes. Then it dropped down abruptly. The middle of the morning, the party found themselves in the Indian village of Coaza, perched on top of a precipitous mountain slope. The day of their arrival turned out to be the birthday of the Gobernador (who it happened spoke both Spanish and Quechua). He invited them to dine with him, which they did: partaking first of cake and egg nog, then roast pig; then of two more courses, each consisting of a different kind of meat soup.

Leaving Coaza , they came down the side of the mountain by an even more precipitous trail, Mrs. Hardison noting with wonder the crops which were being raised by the Indians on the almost perpendicular hillsides. Next thing, Mrs. Chapman's horse stumbled so badly in crossing a little gulch that she became terrified of it and refused to ride it again. So Mrs. Hardison changed over to the horse and let Mrs. Chapman have the mule. By nightfall they reached a small lake, where they made camp, as arranged, and where they had expected to meet Indians who would carry their equipment into the mine. Instead, to their dismay, they met a man who had been sent out from the mine for provisions, who reported that food supplies had not arrived at the mine as planned, and that there they were out of everything but chalona (dried sheep) and chuño (dried potatoes). He reported, moreover, that the Indians who had gone in with the first party and who were supposed to come out and carry in the belongings of the second party had run away. The next morning W. L. Hardison  went back with the man to some of the Indian villages to buy flour, sugar and potatoes, and arrange for them to be taken in by Indians and pack mules and llamas. The rest of the party were to go as far as their animals could take them.

The next day was the worst, so far. The trail still plunged steeply downwards, but the party were now getting into wet country. A good part of the time they were riding through a mist so dense that they could hardly see one another. The ground being so wet, Mrs. Hardison's horse was getting tender-footed and kept shying away from the stony trail into the underbrush, and getting separated from the rest of the party in the fog. Mrs. Hardison had Warren on the saddle in front of her. He kept slipping down on the horse's neck; and she spent the day pulling him up, and pulling the horse back on the trail, all the while in terror that she might be separated from the rest of the party. That was a very bad day for her, indeed.

All things must come to an end some time, though, even the bad ones. The party passed the abandoned Indian village of Saco  and finally made camp at a place called Quispe Callani , where the Inca Mining Company was planning to build a warehouse, as this was as far as it was practical to send out mules with heavy loads. This was on a mesa, about 13,500 feet high. The trail was very dangerous because of mud holes, but as the mules in the pack train were used to the country, they got into no trouble there. The terrain was in the main glaciated country, its smooth rock foundation topped with five or six inches of mud covered with water-soaked grass or moss. On top of a little knoll was pitched their tent, a 10 by 12 foot affair which had to shelter the entire party and all of their belongings. And there for six miserable days, most of the time enveloped in heavy fog, they waited for their Indian packers. A man named Knutzen turned up with three or four burros and a little black mule which had been hired for Mrs. Hardison to ride; and finally the expected dozen Indians put in an appearance. For some reason, however, they were apparently unwilling to carry the equipment in, and tried to sneak by the party. Mr. Knutzen and Mr. A. C. Hardison followed them, pushed two or three of them down on the ground, and stood over them threateningly, the Indians making no resistance. Finally after a parley (the admirable Mr. Knutzen spoke English, Spanish, and Quechua fluently!) and after a bottle had gone the rounds, the Indians agreed to pick up the equipment and tote it in.

Next morning the belongings of the party were divided into smaller packs and loaded on to the burros and on the Indians' backs; and each of the children was folded in a blanket and carried off on an Indian's back—in spite of protests! The party was able to go only a few miles that day, however. And at night, having no poles to put up their tent, they just made their beds close to a bank and pulled the tent up over them.

The following day, in spite of their best efforts, the party again did not get off early. And they had hardly started before they met Mr. Chapman, who had heard they were on the road and had come out to meet his wife. That was a grim day's travel, over a trail still drowned in mist. Perhaps the fog was a blessing in disguise, however, as it prevented the women from seeing the bottoms of the terrifyingly steep rock staircases they had to descend, or the sheer precipice that bordered the knife ridge summit which the trail followed for many miles. Going on to Sachapata  the party spent another uncomfortable night on a mountain top drenched in clouds, in a tambo consisting of only a thatched roof and a few side poles.

The trail they had to follow the next day was hair-raising: a series of sheer drops and spectacular hairpin zigzags down a steep slope that dropped into a flight of precipitous stairs topping an incredibly narrow stony ridge. In a letter to her brother-in-law Lowell Hardison, Mrs. Hardison said of that stretch of the journey: "It is about eight miles from Sachapata to Cochina tambo  but it seemed eighteen and through an African jungle. It reminded me of pictures I have seen in the Geographies. The moss is five and six inches deep on the trees, and two or three feet on the ground. Mrs. Chapman thought the road was getting too bad for riding, so she started on foot. The trail was full of mud puddles, it having rained quite hard the day before, and it was quite an amusing sight to see Mr. Chapman with his wife on his back wading through the mud up to his knees. In many places the trail is washed out so that the bottom of the trail is at least two feet if not three feet below the surface and with  bushes and vines growing together overhead. I felt as though I was riding through tunnels a greater part of the time. About half-past four it began raining and no place to stop until we came to Cochina, so we had to go on. At six o'clock we reached there and it was dark and Mr. and Mrs. Chapman were back we didn't know where, but worst of all we could find no water."

When the party set out they had been provided with bottled water, but a few days before, the bottle, which was carried on Mrs. Chapman's mule, somehow slipped its moorings, fell to the ground and broke, leaving the party dependent on the water of the country. As soon as they reached Cochina Tambo , Mr. Hardison had dispatched an Indian to the spring where they usually got water, but this time he came back to say that there was a dead llama lying in it. The fog made further traveling that night on the steep trail too dangerous, so the party had to stay put for the night, water or no water. About eight o'clock, two hours after the Hardisons got in, the Chapmans arrived, wet and hungry. Mr. Chapman had lost both shoes and one sock crossing the last mud hole. The party had with them tins of corned beef, also oatmeal, rice, and dried peas. But they dared not touch the salty beef when they had nothing to drink, and they could not cook the oatmeal or rice or peas without water. So they had to go to bed hungry and thirsty. The children were surprisingly good. Mrs. Mrs. Hardison got a piece of clean cloth and held it to the corner of the roof of the tambo, where some drops of water were condensing from the fog. Mrs. Chapman produced a small bottle which had had cod liver oil in it. Mr. Hardison put a little oatmeal into the bottle, added the two tablespoons of water which Mrs. Hardison had managed to squeeze from the bit of cloth; and when the children wanted water, they were given the cod-liver-oil-flavored contents of the bottle. They took a mouthful each and that quieted them.

It was Mrs. Chapman who had the worst time. She got so hungry during the night that she said she just could not stand it, and she made her husband open one of the tins of corned beef and give her some of it to eat. Of course, shortly afterward she was worse off than ever, her thirst having been aggravated. Soon she was, as Mr. Hardison phrased it, "howling for water to beat the band," but there was no water to be had all that miserable night, made more miserable by the fact that everyone could hear clearly from below the roar of the Inambari River .

In the morning, Mr. Hardison sent an Indian out to another spring for water. He came back with some about ten o'clock, and of course everybody then had a good drink and felt better. They did without breakfast, though, until they got to the bottom of the mountain, a difficult descent over a trail that had to be seen to be believed; two and one-half miles long, terrifyingly steep, and dotted with mud holes. They said that when Mr. Moriarty came down it, every step he would put his hands on his knees and groan. At the foot of the hill was a tambo with a little garden around it, belonging to an Indian who raised coca. The party went into the tambo and built a fire, made coffee, and cooked a big kettle of pea soup which tasted wonderful.

Having had their meal and a rest, the party went down to cross their first stream, a pretty good-sized one. The crossing was easily accomplished, however, if one had strong nerves. Spanning the stream was a heavy wire cable on which was a pulley with a triangle. Whoever wanted to cross just sat in the triangle and was pulled across by ropes from the other side. About half a mile farther on, the party crossed the Inambari River , which in the dry season is ordinarily 120 feet wide, in the wet, up to 300 feet. This crossing was accomplished without much difficulty. At the junction of the river and the creek up which lay the way to the mine was another tambo, around it a little clearing where some yams were growing, and a few banana trees. There the weary party rested for several days, fortifying themselves for what was to prove the worst lap of their journey. There was nothing to bother them except a small daytime gnat which bit viciously, causing a blood blister. The one good thing about him was that he always stayed put long enough to be killed. There were vampire bats about at night, but the party avoided danger from them by sleeping in the tambo, which was made of pieces of palmetto stood up on end about two inches apart, too close together for the vampires to get through. Heavy tropical vegetation surrounded the little clearing; and swarms of enormous, incredibly beautiful yellow butterflies were flitting about.

It was a grim ordeal awaited the adult members of the party once they left the tambo. The children were being carried by Indians. So high, so starkly precipitous were the canyon walls bordering the creek that the only possible "road" up stream was the creek bed itself. The creek bottom was covered with shifting stones of assorted sizes, and the water was a raging torrent. Deep holes and great boulders necessitated frequent crossings (Mrs. Chapman counted one hundred and forty before she grew too tired to count) from one side of the stream to the other, these made possible for the women only when the men would go out into the middle of the stream and stand with linked arms, the women clutching one and then the other to avoid being swept down stream. The water, in some places not knee deep, was in others waist deep. There were several little waterfalls which the party were forced to negotiate by means of impromptu ladders. For six hours the party stumbled their way onward, fighting the current. Then, for the first and only time on the trip, Mrs. Hardison gave up. Completely exhausted, she sank down on a boulder and cried despairingly, "You'll have to go on without me. I just can't go another step!"

"But Santo Domingo is just around the next bend," said her husband, bending over her, and patting her encouragingly.

She did not really believe him, for "just around the bend" had been his theme song of encouragement for the past hour. But somehow she managed to get to her feet again, and staggered on around the bend—and found that this time he had spoken the truth. There was the mining camp, at last. There, gleaming white on the hill, were the tents which for many months to come were to be their home. The party headed for them; had an alcohol rub; put on dry clothes "from the inside out" (the ladies were thankful to discard the "bloomers" which they had worn as substitutes for skirts on the trip) ; went down to the camp dining room where supper was waiting; then climbed slowly back up the hill; fell into bed—and slept—and slept!

Arriving at Santo Domingo

Living accommodations at the mine were not luxurious, but seemed at first adequate for comfort. There were Indian tambos, and a two-story building constructed on the side of the hill, the first floor a place to sleep, the second a store. There was a tent put up for the Chapmans. The Hardisons' quarters consisted of two huts, the walls consisting of six-foot palmetto poles piled one on top of another, the roofs American canvas tents, over which there was a thatched palmetto roof to act as a screen from the light. The huts measured about ten by twelve feet, and were placed end to end about three feet apart, with an alley way between. In this alley way was a fireplace built out of mud, with a chimney made from oil cans. In course of time the cans came unsoldered and the smoke came out into the tent, so stoves made of sheet iron were later substituted. It was always a task to keep the fires burning, as the wood was invariably green and wet. In one tent was a bed for the children, with mattress and blankets, and another for Mr. and Mrs. Hardison. (There were only blankets, no sheets.) This tent in which the family slept and ate boasted also a few crudely made native chairs, and an oil stove made of oil drums (later to be replaced by a Swedish oil stove in which they burned kerosene.) Mrs. Hardison used to cook the breakfast oatmeal for the children on the oil stove. Tin plates and cups, and iron knives, forks, and spoons had been brought from home. What cooking utensils Mrs. Hardison had were of native earthenware. The second tent was used as a storeroom and as a playroom for the children. Usually the family had their meals down at the dining room, four or five hundred feet below, at the elevation of the mill. There were two or three white men at the mill—Austrians, Chileans, Germans, and Peruvians—and there were from fifty to a hundred Indians to do the packing and the rough work. The cook was a Frenchman. Clothes had to be washed in the creek, the washing usually being done by Indians.

Life at Santo Domingo

No, life at Santo Domingo was not precisely luxurious. Through the evenings and the dark winter days their lighting came from oil lamps and candles, and every once in a while supplies of oil and candles failed to arrive and the family had to spend the evenings in the dark. Food was always a problem. For a lengthy period the only meat available was boiled or roasted chalona (dried sheep) which frequently was so long in transit that it arrived crawling with maggots. On one occasion Mr. Moriarty got tired of being without meat, so he put a gun into Paul Youngling's hands and told him to go hunting. The next day the camp had fresh meat for dinner, Mrs. Hardison did not find her meal distasteful, and it was not until evening that she learned from Mrs. Chapman that their entree had been monkey. She admitted she felt pretty sick then, but she managed, as usual, to conceal her feelings. Much later, arrangements were made to drive in beef cattle to be butchered at the camp. Another early staple of diet was chuño (dried potatoes). Having once seen the Indians' technique of tossing the brown lumps into hot water, then biting off bits as the edges softened, and dropping them into a pot to cook, Mrs. Hardison was never able to stomach chuño! At first, flour, sugar, and rice were brought to the mine in sacks, and would almost invariably get wet en route and arrive mouldy. Then, after some months, the packaging was changed, and various food staples were shipped in tins. There was still a problem, though: From rough handling in transit the cans were frequently punctured, and even the tiniest puncture permitted ants to enter and get to work on the contents. Vegetables were almost entirely lacking, except for yams. Fresh fruit, except for an occasional pineapple or banana, was also missing. The only milk they had was canned. Butter was a scarce commodity, but native butter did occasionally make its appearance. Native bread (like hard rolls) used to be brought in, and crackers made in Lima. Great indeed was the rejoicing in Santo Domingo when there arrived a box of dried fruits, or nuts, or cake or honey from home. Many boxes were sent, but few arrived. The mail service was execrable. No one ever knew when a mail was going out or when one might arrive. Mrs. Hardison used always to try to write letters ahead, so that she might have them ready to send at little more than a moment's notice. The non-arrival of letters and packages from home which they were told had been despatched soon became an old story, but none the more pleasant for that. The Christmas of 1896 was a bitterly disappointing one. That Christmas packages should be arriving, they knew from letters. Mr. Charles Brown had been on a trip outside and was expected to return shortly and bring the Christmas mail with him. Mrs. Hardison's December and January letters to her parents show how eagerly, for once, (she never allowed herself to be too hopeful, as a rule, about anything at Santo Domingo) she was looking forward to Christmas tokens from home. Alas! No mail reached the camp until January 1, and then there was nothing in it for the Hardisons except a couple of issues of the "Chronicle"!

The climate was certainly designed to dampen a visitor's enthusiasm. Every day some rain fell. Rare days rain fell but briefly and then the sun came out to brighten the camp, but many days there was no sun at all. The site was so damp it was a constant struggle to preserve clothes, woollen articles, and food from mildewing. In several letters Mrs. Hardison commented that for the first time in her life she was glad she had no good clothes, as it would mean so much work to preserve them from damage. During the "rainy season" they experienced torrential rains for weeks at a time. Five or six inches of rain would fall in as many hours. Even during the so-called fine weather season there were many cloudbursts which could cause major damage to the Santo Domingo trails.

Another distressingly regular feature of the locality was landslides: their long-drawn-out roar came to be a familiar sound. Fortunately they usually seemed to occur on the side of the mountain opposite to the camp. Terrific thunderstorms were a regular occurrence, the narrow canyon prolonging for moments at a time the terrifying roar of the thunder, the whole world seeming to be swallowed up in sound. On January 9th, 1897, Mrs. Hardison wrote to her parents: "It is so dark this morning I can sparcely see anything—and it is raining very hard, thunders, too—sometimes when it thunders it seems as though it is a continual roll and crash for more than a minute. I believe I like to hear it thunder, though. The lightning never strikes around here, so I do not feel afraid. It seems to be on the tops of the mountains. Last night there was a slide on the mountain opposite us. I thought the whole mountain was falling, and expected to see a slide at least twenty or thirty feet wide, but I felt disappointed this morning when I looked out and saw that it seemed not over five feet (Allie  says it is ten, but it doesn't look it from here.) It was started from the top of the mountain (about 800 feet) so you may know it made up in length, anyway."

Although Mrs. Hardison complained of the damp bitter cold of winter and the moist enervating heat of summer, she took these in her stride. The insect life about the camp she found it harder to take. "There are all kinds of bugs and flies," she said, "I never saw so many bugs." Ants, particularly, were a problem. They seemed to be everywhere. Rigid precautions had to be taken to preserve the food at camp. The worst of the ants was a small brown one, just about a third of an inch long, with formidable pincers. He would crawl up a leg, put his pincers together, and take out the flesh! To be seen on the flat land by the river were the small black ants that travel by the millions in a stream a foot to eighteen inches wide, as a rule carrying on their backs a leaf held vertical.

In the neighborhood there were scorpions, centipedes, utterly fantastic spiders large and small, and tarantulas, but these did not ordinarily frequent the camp site. There were snakes, too, in the neighborhood, of both harmless and poisonous varieties; but fortunately, they, too, rather shunned the deep canyon clearings. An occasional deer, an occasional monkey let itself be seen. Mr. Hardison met a whole tribe of monkeys once on a hill trail. An Indian who worked in the mine one day saw a jaguar. But of potential danger from the various jungle inhabitants Cora Hardison  recked not at all. She wrote to her mother-in-law on February 16th, 1897: "I have seen but one or two snakes since we came here—and the Indians go about all the time bare-footed and I never heard of one of them being bitten by a snake. There are all kinds of bugs and flies—I never saw so many different kinds of bugs—and the most beautiful butterflies. There are very few birds, and no wild animals that I know of. Although one man saw a  monkey and another saw a tiger—we have not seen any yet. Mrs. Chapman is not quite as nervous about snakes as she was at first. She is very busy all the time—she is doing more than two book-keepers would think they ought to do in the United States… Lowell no doubt has written you that my father has been quite sick—and I have no doubt sicker than they have written us—but the last letter we had from him he wrote and said he was feeling much better. I hope he will be alright. Helen remembers them all and if she had been six months older she would be terribly homesick. As it is, she gets pretty lonesome."

In one of her letters Mrs. Hardison had mentioned to her mother-in-law that it was necessary for her husband to make trips now and then down to the Oroya  (on the Inambari ) and be away two or three days at a time. Her mother-in-law was horrified at the idea of Cora's being alone at night in the jungle with the children. In answer to her questions, her intrepid daughter replied: "You ask if I stayed alone in our tent. Yes, why not? There is nothing to be afraid of here."

The family at Santo Domingo

On December 4, 1896, the third Hardison baby made his appearance, a boy who was christened "Ernest Crane Hardison" but who all his life was to be known as "Domingo" Hardison. He was sturdy and independent right from the start, bringing himself into the world with such despatch that he had already arrived before his father, hastily summoned from the mill, could reach the tent. Mrs. Hardison soon rallied from her weakness, and once more, on fine days, went out with the children to get some fresh air. Their expeditions had always been limited to quiet strolls along those paths which were not too steep; but now, as she had to carry the baby, their range was even more limited. Cora Hardison wrote to her niece: "Lucy, if you saw me carrying the baby and Warren and Helen trotting behind, you would think I was an old ‘squaw'. For that is the way I gather most of my ferns and flowers. Sometimes Allie  stays with the baby—when he is asleep—and he is writing. Helen and Warren think it great fun to go out for a ‘walk' Helen says. The other day we were up towards the mine and gathered quite a bouquet of wild violets, found a few ferns—not enough to mention, though, for we have had ten days without a drop of rain and the ferns were all dried up. But just think of it! Ten days without a drop of rain! I never expected to see such a long dry spell in Santo Domingo! The consequence is the creek is very low—too low to run the stamp mill. But tonight, June 11, it is raining. Last month while it rained all the time, day and night, it didn't rain hard enough to raise the creek or wash things off in good shape. As I was going to tell you, the most common wild flower here is the begonia. It is a very delicate flower at home—never cultivated outside of the hot house. The two petals are delicate pink, perhaps it would be called a flesh color, with a yellow center. The leaves are dark glossy green, red underneath, shaped like angel wings."

Being always accompanied by at least two children, Cora Hardison did not get very far along with her project of collecting ferns, even although she was in a fern-collector's paradise exhibiting every imaginable variety from the tiny maiden hair to giant tree ferns. Mosses were plentiful: deep velvety mosses, green, brown, and red. She collected some of these. The amazing variety and beauty of the jungle foliage held her fascinated. She started a collection of brilliantly hued and oddly shaped leaves, and sent some home in her letters. In the neighborhood of the Oroya, where the vegetation becomes really tropical and luxuriant, for many months of the year the Santo Domingo trail is gay with myriad-colored blooms: at different seasons showing a carpet of rosy angel wing begonias, heavy clusters of beautiful fuchsias, masses of bleeding hearts, dark red amaryllis, blue lupin, harebells, pink and white and blue Canterbury bells, Madonna lilies, gorgeous tree orchids, larkspur, colored phlox, petunias, violets, and lady-slippers—to mention just a few. It was too bad that Cora Hardison, who so dearly loved flowers, and who, when she got back to civilization, used to save up her money to buy bulbs for her garden, never had a chance to know this riot of color and fragrance.

Of the thousands of rare and beautiful birds hidden in the neighboring jungle, she likewise knew nothing; the only evidence she ever had of their existence being an occasional burst of song or an iridescent feather lying on the narrow trail. She commented in one letter that there were not many birds about, but in another enclosed five fluffy grey feathers tipped with vivid green or red: feathers from a queztal or one of his cousins.*

Gorgeous butterflies were about in amazing profusion. Mrs. Hardison speaks of their dazzling beauty and variety. There were great iridescent ones, blue and gold, the size of a man's hand; huge yellow ones; small silvery ones; some which resembled floating bits of black lace; tiny dark purple ones; and in-between sizes of brown, green, orange yellow, and blue—many with "brocade" wings of contrasting colors.

Life at the camp soon fell into a more or less routine pattern. There was plenty to do to keep everyone busy. Mrs. Hardison pretty well had her hands full with the children and domestic concerns. When the oil stove provided for the tent proved unsatisfactory (Fuel was sometimes lacking, even before the stove came unsoldered) an ingenious man at the camp made her a stove constructed on the principle of the air-tight heater, from oil cans; later adding an extra can to serve as an oven, which enabled Mrs. Hardison to do a little baking (when she could round up the necessary ingredients). As at first all food served at the camp dining room was either fried or boiled, the family relished something baked, for a change.

Mrs. Chapman on the very first day was plunged into a maelstrom of work; and continued all the time she remained at camp to "do the work of two men" as a bookkeeper. She proved exceedingly competent, in spite of currency difficulties. Bolivianos were the medium of exchange. Carrying in enough silver money posed a problem. Up to 2,500 bolivianos might be brought in at a time, and Mrs. Chapman at the receiving end was responsible for counting this. She would count her money only once, yet at the end of the balancing she was never more than five or ten dollars out. Finally, under Mr. Hardison's period of management, the Inca Mining Company issued token paper money, about $20,000 worth, to save this packing in of silver for one hundred and fifty miles.

Mr. Chapman took over the duties of store-keeper. Chester Brown, part of the time, was in charge of transportation: bringing in supplies of food, mining tools and equipment; shipping the gold brought out of the mine. It was a thankless job, as the higher-ups were very slow to realize the difficulties attendant on shipping in South America. W. L. Hardison  would order generous supplies of rice, flour, sugar, peas, beans, canned milk, chuno, chalona, and various kinds of supplementary tinned goods; yet it might be weeks, even months, before they would be delivered at the adobe railway shed. Once there, they would be packed on mule-back and Indian back and sent off; but even so the food problem was by no means solved: staples not packed in tins were almost certain to get wet in transit and arrive mouldy, even crawling; and even when packed in tins might suffer minute punctures which would give ants access to the contents. A torrential rain or a landslide (both everyday occurrences) might so damage the trail that a pack train would be held up for days. On one occasion W. L. Hardison  ordered about 200 dozen eggs to go in to the mine; and made arrangements (he thought!) for them to go in quickly. He did not, however, make sufficient allowance for the Peruvian temperament. The eggs remained for six weeks in Tirapata, and were on the road three weeks more. He ordered twenty-one beef cattle to be sent in to the mine. The camp received due notice of their coming; but on the appointed day only one animal arrived, the rest being left at the Oroya. Why? No one ever knew the answer to that one.

Mr. A. C. Hardison had been sent to the mine to serve as Assistant Manager and Assistant Engineer. He set to work at once surveying the Company's property and laying out much-needed new trails in the vicinity of the mine. The mine was located 1,700 feet up the Santo Domingo Creek above the mill, and the whole countryside around was incredibly steep. Cora Hardison commented, shortly after her arrival: "It is impossible to travel here after dark. You might just as well lie down and make up your mind to stay all night, or run the risk of breaking your neck. Allie  went down to the Creek the other day to do some work on the trail, and darkness overtook them and they stayed out on the hill all night, within a few hundred yards of the camp, and it was raining, too! He didn't tell me whether he enjoyed it or not." Miners' tools, dynamite, dynamite fuses and caps had to be ordered from Lima or New York, and it could take three months to get them, because of shipping and local transportation delays.

Machinery for the new mill, heavy bulky equipment weighing ten tons, posed an unanswerable problem at the outset. A steel shaft ten feet long, weighing perhaps 400 pounds, was impossible to transport on mule-back, over the existing narrow precipitous trails. The only way to widen the canyon trail was to blast through solid rock. The blasting process would in turn require dynamite caps and fuses, tools, and labor. There was always a shortage of at least some one of these. In Peru, "land of mañana", it always took at least four times as long to get anything done as it did in the United States. The operators of the mine learned this to their cost.

During the ninety-day option period which followed the purchase of the mine by W. L. Hardison  from Señors Velasco and Estrada, these gentlemen had apparently been making an earnest effort to "clean out" the mine. Extremely rich leads had been discovered in two of the tunnels, and they worked these with frantic eagerness, failing to timber the tunnels properly as they progressed, which neglect was to be responsible for "cave-ins" which later held up the Inca Mining Company production. They succeeded in taking out a goodly sum.

Under the Inca Mining Company, production was maddeningly slow. It took over a year and a half to set up the new mill with heavy machinery which W. L. Hardison  (blind to shipping inertia, impassable roads, and shortage of labor) had confidently expected to have operating within three months. "Cave-ins" blocking several of the old mine tunnels, it became necessary to start new tunnels. A labor shortage then made itself distressingly evident. For lack of something better, the newcomers were forced to make use of what machinery there was to hand. Velasco and Estrada had installed a small 450 pound stamp mill activated by water power, the stamps dropping 16 times a minute, which made rather slow crushing. (Before being fed to the mill, the ore was broken into small pieces by hand.) The gold settled to the bottom ‘ of the mortar-box and was recovered in wooden "bateas" by Indians. Then that part which passed through the screen was passed over riffles in a flume, and more gold was recovered. The gold was then put into sacks or skins and packed out to Arequipa.

Within a year, an assay office was built, about four hundred feet from the mill. The gold was then melted into bars; after which it was carried on men's backs for three days; then transported on mule-back about seventy-five miles; then sent by train to Arequipa; and from there shipped to Swansea, England—all in all, a pretty long and arduous journey! Gold was not shipped very often. Two or three Indians would carry it to the pack train. One man could carry up to fifty pounds of gold (about $15,000 worth). As gold is a very mean thing to pack, it being so heavy it will go through any bag or valise, for transportation a bar would be put in the middle of a long narrow box with cleats in the middle, the gold bar between the cleats. In time the Company changed their method of milling; put in riffles and blanket strakes (running water over blankets) ; and shipped "concentrate" (this running as high as $10,000 a ton) for treatment.

Hold-ups were not unknown. One of the hazards of going to do business in a foreign country is having to pick up employees of whose background you know nothing. The Inca Mining Company had for a time in its employ two Americans one of whom was a member of a blackjack gang in Arizona. This fellow and his companion worked in the mine long enough to familiarize themselves with its procedures; then, one night after a shipment of some 2,500 bolivianos (value about $1,000) had been brought in for the payroll, they held up the cashier of the mine, at a time when he was peacefully playing checkers with the storekeeper. They helped themselves to the 2,500 bolivianos and what food supplies they thought they might need. Then, marching the two Company employees about half a mile down the trail, they stopped and had a meal there, afterward sending the two men back unharmed. Next thing, they cut the telephone wires, and climbed the brush slopes to a point where they had established a camp, from which point they had a good view of the trail both up and down the creek for a considerable distance. They had somehow learned that a large gold shipment was about to be sent out of the mine. Discovering the telephone wires to be cut, the commander of a group of Peruvian soldiers who had already been detailed to escort the shipment "outside" informed the mine officials that he suspected an ambush.

Mr. Hardison armed a number of his men and stationed them at key points. He also offered a reward for the capture of the robbers. A German miner volunteered to track them, with the help of six Indians; and he did succeed in discovering the two men, hiding behind a rock. They fired at him, however, and he fled, throwing down his rifle. One of the Indians picked up the gun and shot at the robbers. They promptly returned fire, killing one Indian and wounding another. The only means of escape being the trail along which the party from the mine had come, Mr. Hardison stationed Indians along every 150 feet, and thought he had the robbers bottled up for sure. But the weather-god played him a mean trick: suddenly a dense fog-cloud rolled into the canyon, so dense that one could not see ten feet. Under cover of this fog the two men managed to creep between two of the sentries and make their escape into Bolivia. Neither they nor the 2,500 bolivianos were again seen in the vicinity of Santo Domingo Mine.

About the middle of August, 1897, the Chapmans left Santo Domingo, to return to the United States. Mrs. Hardison had come with the understanding that if she so desired, she might return home at the end of the year. She stayed a year and a half. At that time another baby was on the way, she was feeling very unwell, and she was also worried about little Helen's health. Toward the end of November, 1897, then, she left South America, Mr. A. C. Hardison accompanying the party to Lima. Mrs. Hardison went first to Santa Paula to spend some time with her parents. There baby Ruth was born. Some time later, Mrs. Hardison and the children made a trip back to Maine, to visit Mr. Hardison's people.

Mr. Hardison's responsibilities did not permit him to leave Santo Domingo as soon as he would have liked to do, though he was exceedingly lonely without his family, and increasingly distressed by mismanagement in the mine. He made a few trips out of the mine, at various times, to see if he could get on the trail of any valuable ore-bearing property on his own; but without success. In 1898, when he was in Cuzco he was, he said, besieged by people who wanted him to visit this and that, and put up money for all sorts of wild schemes. One man said he knew of a tunnel extending clear through underneath the city of Lima. He wanted Mr. Hardison to finance excavating it. Another man claimed to know the whereabouts of a large quantity of buried Inca gold. He wanted Mr. Hardison to pay for digging it up. Mr. Hardison offered him a pick and shovel and suggested he go and uncover it himself. Some Indians came to him and told him they had come across the ruins of a buried city on a mountain top several days' journey down the river. They wanted to take him there. Unfortunately Mr. Hardison didn't take any stock in that offer, either. It was not until 1946 that he was to have his first glimpse of fabulous Macchu Picchu!

A good many million dollars in gold was taken out of the Santo Domingo Mine while the Inca Mining Company operated it, but the stockholders saw relatively little of this. Progress and profits were so unsatisfactory that in 1914 the mine was sold. It was taken over by Senator Emery, who spent immense sums on it, among other things constructing a hydro-electric plant. After his death in 1925 the mine was closed down. In 1928 it was bought by Clarence Woods, a mining engineer who had had considerable experience in South America, and who learned how best to treat the concentrates. He bought the mine for a song, and eventually made a fortune out of it.

Returning to the United States in 1901, A. C. Hardison went to Arizona for a year as Manager of the Gladiator Mine. From 1902 to 1904 he carried on a private engineering practice which took him hither and yon. Then for three years he was in Kansas and Indian Territory engaged in the oil business, and for the first time in years actually living with his family.

* Puno was then a flourishing mining center. One of the wealthy men of Puno at the time of his daughter's marriage paved the path from his house to the church with bars of silver.

* My grateful thanks to Dr. Alden Miller of the University of California, who has identified the bird as a member of the Trogon group, either Pharomacrus mocino (the quetzal) or Pharomacrus pavoninas.

From "Three Men from Aroostook"
The Story of the Hardison Family
By Rena V. Grant
1963, Brazleton-Hanscom, Berkeley, California

Last updated October 9, 2012