294 Di" Hamilton's Observations on the Llama, 



larger than that at London, a palaco, a theatre, court-houses, 

 eighteen parish churches, and other public edifices, still testify 

 what Potosi has been. This may seem to be a digression 

 from the llama ; but it is not so, for without the services of 

 that animal, so well adapted to such an extraordinary locality, 

 the mines could not have been wrought to the extent which 

 they wer6. To understand how the llama was so necessary 

 there, it should be stated that the cerro of Potosi, whence the 

 silver ore is obtained, is at one end of the city, and all the 

 works, where the ore is pounded, ground, roasted, and the sil- 

 ver extracted, have ever been at the other extremity of the 

 town, and distant about a league from where the ore is brought 

 up to the surface by Indians. All the ore is pounded and 

 ground by means of machinery, acted on by water-wheels, 

 which are moved by water from a very large reservoir placed 

 among the hills above the city. The reservoir is supplied 

 from various sources or ponds among the hills, whence the 

 water is conveyed to the reservoir by means of aqueducts 

 and conduits, and descends from the reservoir to the city by gra- 

 vitation, supplying both the silver works and the town, many 

 of the houses having the water conveyed into them through 

 leaden pipes. But with all these advantages, the mines of 

 Potosi could not have been v\Tought so easily without the aid 

 of the llama and alpaca ; for the ore, in immense quantity, 

 had to be carried from the mines to the works, and that, too, 

 over a most rugged and unequal surface, at an altitude of 

 neai'ly 14,000 feet above the level of the ocean : no other ani- 

 mals in the world are so well adapted for such work in such a 

 locality. Except water, every thing for the sustenance of 

 man and beast has to be brought to Potosi from a distance of 

 many miles over mountain tracts, the nearest spot where fuel 

 (wood or charcoal) is obtained being thirty miles off. In such 

 circumstances, the llama was invaluable, its food, pajon, i. e. 

 ichu in the dry state, was brought by means of mules and 

 asses, so that these llamas or alpacas cost very little for 

 maintenance while working at the mines. The result was, 

 that many thousands of them were employed in Potosi as beasts 

 of burden between the mines and the places where the ma- 

 chinery is placed ; and, when necessary, the flesh was used 



