16 



grounds before they received cattle from Europe. 

 However this may be^ it is certain that this 

 species of camel was employed antecedent to 

 that period as beasts of burden, and the transition 

 from carriage to the draught is not difficult. 



Man merely requires to become acquainted 

 with the tility of any object, to induce him to 

 apply it by degrees to other advantageous pur- 

 poses. 



It is a generally received opinion that grain 

 was eaten raw by the first men who employed it 

 as an article of food. But this aliment being of 

 an insipid taste, and difficult of mastication, they 

 began to parch or roast it ; the grain thus cooked 

 easily pulverizing in the hands, gave them the 

 first idea of meal, which they gradually learned 

 to prepare in the form of gruel, cakes, and finally 

 of bread. At the period of which we treat, the 

 Chilians ate their grain cooked ; this was done 

 either by boiling it in earthen pots adapted to 

 the purpose, or roasting it in hot sand, an ope- 

 ration which rendered it lighter and less viscous. 

 But not satisfied with preparing it in this mode, 

 which has always been the most usual among 

 nations emerging from the savage state, they 

 proceeded to make of it two distinct kinds of 

 meal, the parched, to which they gave the name 

 of tnurque, and the raw, which they called rugo. 

 With the first they made gruels^ and a kind of 

 beverage which they at present use for breakfast 



