678 



CAMEL. 



hare tuberous, or other strong and permanent roots. 

 It is to this description of soil, when hardened, that 

 the feet of the Bactrian camel are peculiarly adapted ; 

 and the adaptation is as perfect, and as clearly de- 

 monstrative of indescribable wisdom of design, as any 

 other winch occurs in nature. 



LAMAS (Auchenia). The animals which constitute 

 this genus, or division of the camel family, differ 

 considerably from those already described ; but still 

 they retain the general characters so perfectly as to 

 belong to'this family, and not to any other. What 

 may be called the general system is the same in them 

 as in the true camels ; and all the differences between 

 them are adaptations to difference of situation, and 

 of the circumstances thence arising. They are all 

 natives of South America, and of South America 

 only ; but they do not inhabit the plains. Their 

 locality is on the different cordillera or ridges, which 

 form the great chain of the Andes ; and they inhabit 

 those mountains as high as the commencement of the 

 region of snow. From the great elevation of those 

 mountains, and their lying nearly upon a meridian, 

 there is perpetual snow upon the more lofty summits, 

 through the whole length of the chain ; and from 

 various causes (some of which will be found noticed 

 in the article AMERICA in tins work,) they are subject 

 to very violent storms. 



The region of the Andes is so peculiar, and differs 

 so much from those which are inhabited by the camels 

 of the East, that no animal or other production of 

 that region can be well understood, without some know- 

 ledge of the region itself. Indeed, no animal can be 

 properly studied as a portion of the system of nature, 

 the only point of view in which the study of it is any 

 thing else than an idle amusement, unless the place 

 of which it is a native, or for which it is best adapted, 

 is studied along with it. This is generally omitted in 

 works which profess to treat of natural history, and 

 bec-ause it is so the public generally do not profit by 

 those works, and therefore they do not care for them. 



The slightest consideration will serve to convince 

 any one of the necessity of studying the place along 

 with the production. All the peculiarities of animals, 

 or of nature's other productions, are adaptations of 

 them to the places where they are naturally found, 

 and consequently, without a knowledge of the situa- 

 tion, we can tell nothing of the use either of the 

 different organs of an animal, or of that animal as a 

 whole. 



The Andes, as well as the eastern deserts, are in 

 many places barren ; but, in every other respect they 

 are the reverse of each other. The eastern deserts 

 are flat and monotonous, and unless when the winds 

 drive the sands in the southern ones, or rain or snow 

 fulls in the northern ones, there is little natural action 

 of any kind on them. They are not only in great 

 part desolate of life, but they are deprived in a great 

 measure of the action of dead nature. The Andes, 

 on the other hand, are perhaps more diversified in 

 their surface than any other portion of the earth of 

 equal extent. Lofty peaks, frightful precipices, 

 ravines cleft nearly mile deep, natural bridges, foaming 

 torrents, thundering cascades, and every thing which 

 is considered as forming part of the sublime of still 

 life, is to be found there in the greatest abundance 

 and the utmost perfection. Nor, independently alto- 

 gether of vegetables and animals, is the working of 

 nature any where, perhaps, upon so grand a scale as 

 upon those wild mountains. Volcanoes are numerous, 



many of them rage incessantly, and ./Etna would be 

 but as a little hill by the side of the more lofty ones. 

 Earthquakes are consequently numerous, and always 

 fearful, and sometimes lamentable in their effects. 

 Among the summits where man cannot comfortably 

 inhabit, they rend and scatter the rocks with terrible 

 destruction ; and sometimes in the lower parts of the 

 country they have, at a single vibration, shaken a 

 city to pieces, and laid its ruins level with the earth. 

 Nor is the action of the atmosphere less energetic. 

 In the warmer parts, the lightning and thunder are 

 awfully grand, and the rain falls so fast as to flood 

 the ground in a few minutes ; while on and near the 

 summit, the snow storms darken the atmosphere, and 

 drive with a fury unknown in any other part of the ' 

 world, so that no other unsheltered animal can keep 

 its footing, or even preserve its life. 



In such a country, both animals and vegetables 

 must be peculiar ; and we may be prepared to expect 

 very considerable differences between any race of 

 animals, and those of the same race in the quiet 

 deserts of the eastern world. This in part accounts 

 for the little knowledge which we have of the animals 

 under consideration, and there is another cause 

 which has tended still further to limit our information, 

 and also to render it inaccurate as far as it goes. 



During the whole time that this part of the world 

 was under the dominion of Spain, which was from 

 our first knowledge of its existence down to a very 

 recent period, the scientific world was studiously kept 

 in ignorance of it ; and even since it became inde- 

 pendent, many parts have been too unsettled for 

 enabling us to obtain any thing like correct informa- 

 tion respecting a country so very extensive. Thus 

 the little information which we possess respecting 

 these animals refers more to single specimens out of 

 their native country, than to their natural and proper 

 habits within it. 



Thus the Lamas were for some time studied as if 

 they had formed part of the zoology of the eastern 

 continent; and for a considerable time naturalists 

 considered them as a kind of sheep, though in their 

 true system they are camels. Even now, though 

 there are living specimens at the gardens of the 

 Zoological Society, and other places, the history of 

 them is not yet perfect ; though it may be said that 

 they bear nearly the same relation to the true camels, 

 that sheep and goats bear to oxen, or rather, perhaps, 

 that some of them have more resemblance to the 

 sheep, and others more to the goat. It is, however, 

 to be understood, that the resemblance to these 

 animals applies to the adaptation to the haunt only, 

 and not to the system of the animal. There is 

 however, one structural peculiarity in which the 

 resemblance holds : the true camels have all four 

 mammae like the ox tribe, while the Lama division 

 have two, like the sheep and goats. 



Since the introduction of European cattle into 

 South America, where they have thriven in a wild 

 state to a degree quite unprecedented in any other 

 part of the world, the lamas have become of com- 

 paratively small importance in a general point of 

 view, though they are still much prized by the 

 Indians and other mountaineers, in those wild places 

 of the country which are not adapted for the pas- 

 turing of cattle. They are not now used as beasts 

 of burden, except perhaps in some rare instances, 

 where from the poverty and inaccessibility of the 

 place, the colonists have left the Indians so much 



