The Spanish Imperial City of Potosi was a prime mining center for the Empire during the 1500s - 1600s and was the source of many wonderful stories which give insight not only to the character of the colonial new world but of the Native population who worked the mines.
In April, 1677, Sebastian del Canto y Cerro, a poor man burdened with debts and with a wife and children, and despairing because he had no means of supporting them, determined to go one night (which was Easter eve) to the Mountain and enter one of the rich mines unbeknownst to its owner in order to extract some ore with which to satisfy his needs. The ancients were quite right in giving necessity the name “golden spurs,” for the harsh impediment of poverty clips the wings and hampers the progress of necessity; and since its spur is so indispensable it is no wonder that men overcome all obstacles and place their lives in manifest danger because of it.
This poor man, then, put his plan into effect and at about eight o’clock that night, relying on the little knowledge he had of the paths within those very large workings, entered them through a hole far distant from the mouth of the mine, for he knew that it was guarded. Having descended into the mine with great difficulty, be began to walk through it (not knowing where he was) in search of some vein or cutting where ore could be extracted; having walked for a long time, he came to a certain chamber where he stumbled over an obstruction and in his fall put out his candle. Poor Sebastian was left in that terrible labyrinth filled with terror, for he had unwisely failed to bring tinder, steel, or flint to make a light, a precaution that every Spaniard takes when he enters these deep mines for just such an eventuality. This also happened to me and Bartolome Cotamito, mining supervisor for the chief of mines Antonio Lopez de Quiroga, in the great shaft also called Cotamito in the old workings of the Discovery Lode.
I had asked this miner to accompany me and show me some of the mines in this shaft, in particular the one through which the water had passed in 1701 when a large part of the water that had covered these workings was drained off. Bartolome Cotamito, that good man, acceded to my request, telling me to take great care with my feet, hands and eyes, for all these are necessary to traverse the mines of this Mountain. We entered the shaft by a long and broad staircase hewn out of the rock, and then we traversed a number of cuttings so laboriously that I cursed my curiosity. Sometimes we had to climb straight down and at others to make use of hands and feet to climb up to other passages and scaffoldings, which he negotiated very skillfully, while I was so frightened that it seemed each step was going to be my last. There were passages so narrow that we had to crawl through them, always taking care not to extinguish the light I carried.
Soon we came to a bridge formed I mid-air of the stout wooden stakes used to make scaffoldings and ladders that are used in the deep mines to get from one place to another; the miner insisted that I cross it (merely to frighten me, as he afterward confessed). In reality, all the walking we had done and the trouble we had been to previously had been a path strewn with flowers in comparison with what we were now expected to traverse. That terrible bridge was about twenty-five yards long, with the stakes set into the walls on either side and about three handspans apart; beneath was a subterranean lake, so far below the stakes that it was barely visible. I told the miner that it would be difficult for me to cross over those stakes because I was afraid of falling, and not only would I lose my life there would never be any way of recovering my body. “That is true,” replied the miner, “but since you have come so far without showing signs of fear or weakness, I do not doubt that you will pass over those stakes very successfully, though I warn you that the tenth stake counting from this on is split down the middle, and hence you must step only on the ends, which are wedged into the walls on either side.” As you may imagine, this was little comfort for a person who was convinced that he was going to end his life there, even without the new danger that had just been described to him. But whose vanity would not have been piqued, especially as the miner had begun by flattering me?
I therefore commended myself very earnestly to God and began to follow him. We were on equal terms, for neither was more familiar with the ladder than the other; then, only four stakes from solid ground, the miner’s candle went out. He stopped and asked me to hasten my steps so that I could give him light from the candle I was carrying, with which to light his own. This I did, and as I leaped to safety the movement caused my own light to go out and both of us were left in that terrible darkness. The miner was greatly mortified because, since both of us had carried lights, he had not taken the precaution of bringing a means of making fire. He told me that there was nothing to do but wait till night, when surely his assistant would pass by on his way to a cutting some distance from that place. He was much concerned and I was in despair, for it was only nine o’clock in the morning (according to our best calculations), and at this rate the miner would not arrive until eight o’clock at night. By the time he finally came, it seemed to me as if I had been there for more than two days. We relighted our candles and got out through another entrance, a long way from the one we had come in by, owing to the long detour we had taken, and full of dangerous passages.
Since I myself have experienced the anguish of having had my light extinguished, I can appreciate the feelings that overcame Sebastian del Canto, whom we left filled with terror and affliction, when, as he stumbled and fell, the candle he was carrying went out and left him with no hope of rescue such as we had, for the poor man neither knew where he was nor could suppose that anyone would pass by the place. Seeing himself in that terrible predicament and with the thought that his wife and children were waiting for him to alleviate their hunger and that he himself might well perish from hunger in that place, he felt grief so great that he was on the point of giving up the ghost. Now, Sebastian was very devoted to the Holy Christ of the parish of San Pedro (one of the most admirably fashioned images in the city and one that has performed many miracles), for since he lived near the church, he visited it often and prayed daily to the divine Lord to favor him in all his needs. Great was the need in which he now found himself, and so he earnestly pleaded for help and with a great effort began to grope his way through that terrible darkness to see if he could not find some path that would lead him to an open space, to an entrance, or to some place where he would find miners working. But he only succeeded in becoming more confused in that labyrinth, and so, despairing of ever getting out or finding human help in that desperate plight, seeing himself frustrated, and overcome with terror and hunger – for he had now been lost for three days – he fell on his knees and began to offer his life to God, resigning himself to His divine will.
Meanwhile his wife and children, knowing full well that poor Sebastian had gone to the Mountain with the intention of taking ore from some mine to assuage his need and seeing that by the second day he had not returned, guessed what had happened and began to bewail their misfortune. Just as all things that are greatly desired seem long in coming, though the delay be ever so small, so things that are feared seem to come quickly, though the delay be ever so great. Grief-stricken and certain of misfortune, they went to the church of San Pedro and fell at the feet of that miraculous image of Christ crucified and with copious tears implored it to cause their husband and father to appear, for they now had no one to support them.
The tears of Sebastian and of his wife and children were so efficacious that the Lord of Mercies was moved to succor them in their plight. He appeared to the unfortunate Sebastian in the same form as His sacred image in the chapel of the church of San Pedro, at some little distance from him and bathed in such radiance from the rays of light that steamed from Him that it seemed as if the sun itself had entered whole into that narrow place, but even brighter than the sun because it was the divine Christ our Lord. He made signs to Sebastian to follow Him and Sebastian complied; he soon found himself in the mouth, or opening, he had come in by. Nor did divine favor cease here, for he also found at the entrance, in a niche that was there, a good supply of very rich ore that could not have been in that place by any natural agency, but must have been put there supernaturally by God. Sebastian took it and loading it on his back, started for home; after he had walked a few steps he met some friends of his who were coming to look for him, having heard from others that he had gone to the mines and had not reappeared. Sebastian asked them what day it was, and when they told him that it was Wednesday, he marveled greatly at having been favored by our Lord; he had been lost inside the mine for less than four days, for he had entered it on Saturday night at about eight o’clock and it was now ten o’clock in the morning of Wednesday.
They all came down from the Mountain, and before returning home Sebastian entered the church of San Pedro. Kneeling before that miraculous image of Christ our Lord, he fervently offered thanks for His divine mercy and then, accompanied by his friends, returned to his home, where he found many other friends consoling his wife and children in their misfortune. But seeing him enter alive (they were already mourning him as dead), all rejoiced and exchanged tender embraces. He told everyone who was present of the miracle, and all gave thanks to our Lord. With the ore he had found Sebastian satisfied his present needs and had enough with the rest to provide a modest living, for Divine Providence had solved all his problems.
