By night fitful fires of Ilama dung and cactus leaves lighted the little camp 13,000 feet up on the cold and terrifying wastes of the Bolivian Andes. By day the treeless wilderness rang with the blows of a crude stone hammer as a swarthy Bolivian and a handful of Indians kept themselves warm smashing rocks. In quest of the precious, bluish-white metal called tin, they found only dull reddish dirt. The Indians, craving alcohol and coca leaves, wanted to quit. One day they cracked out a few grains of tin. Later a full-fledged...
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