USES OF SCIRPUS LACUSTRIS. 21 



d'Auliagas," — he writes, " Le point ou nous le traversames s'appelle 

 Balsas de Nasahara, a cause du pont de bateaux (balsas) qui en rallie 

 las rives. Ces balsas sont construits avec une espece de jonc (Totora) 

 tres-abondant dans quelques marais et dans les lagunes de la Cordillere, 

 et ressemblant, a s'y mepreudre, a notre Scirpus laciistris, Un plancher 

 tres-epais, egalemeut en Totora, repose sur les balsas, et le tout est 

 maintenu aux rives par des cables de la mcme matiere." 



r 



Lieutenant Gibbon, in his ' Exploration of the Valley of the Ama- 

 zon' (Washington, U.S., 1854), speaking of the Lake Titicaca, describes 

 their boats : — •" The Indians navigate the lake in balsas, or boats, made 

 of the lake-rush, which forms the material for both hull and sails : they 

 can only sail with a fair wind."— "The surface of the lake in front of 

 Puna is nearly covered with dead rush-stalks : the stench arising is dis- 

 agreeable." It seems to grow everywhere along the shores, ** Here 

 and there this lake is shoal to the nearest island, about a mile off. The 

 rush grows thick on these shoals, which gives them a meadow-like ap- 

 pearance." But the summary of the history of this plant is given at 

 p- 102 : — *' All the dead rushes, driven by the east winds to the west 

 side, lodge on the flats and beach, manure the dry places, and deposit 

 their seed ; more rushes grow there to catch the sediment as the water 

 filters through. Tear after year the gi'owth dies off, breaks down, and 

 helps the upward levelling law. The rush ^rows from six to eight feet 

 long, and is called Totora by the Indians. The stalk is in size and 

 shape like the blade of a bayonet" (tlie author is a Lieutenant, and no 

 botanist), " with a head and flower resembling clusters of ripe buck- 

 wheat. It supplies the place of wood, iron, canvas, and greens. The 

 Indians were taught by the Incas to make bridges of it, over which 

 they passed their armies : their boats and sails, houses and beds are 

 sometimes made of it. An old Indian was seen refreshing himself with 

 the juice at one end of the stalk, while his little child tickled another 

 one's nose with the flower. Such are the value and uses of this wild 

 vegetable production." 



Lieutenant Gibbon, who has evidently a great dislike to these ele- 

 vated regions, and a taste for the good things of the lower, and thinks 

 the former should be left to the wild Indians, concludes his observa- 

 tions with the following quaint remarks : — " We cannot understand why 

 the population of those mountains have not cleared more lands at the 

 base of the Andes, where their children would find beautiful flowers. 



