104 THE FUTURE OF PUNO. Chap. VI. 



padcUes (as a screw would inevitably foul amongst tlie rushes), 

 and accommodation for passengers on deck. Tliey would take 

 all the products of tlie Bolivian forests, bark, timber, chocolate, 

 coca, fruit, and arnotto, to Puno ; EurojDean manufactured 

 goods, sugar of Abancay, and aguardiente of the coast, from 

 Puno to Bolivia ; provisions and traffic of all kinds amongst 

 the Indians of the shores ; and copper of Coracora to Puno . 

 Timber m vast quantities might be felled in the forests of 

 Caravaya, and floated down the rivers of Azangaro and 

 Ramiz during the rainy season, which, with the coal on the 

 island of Soto, would furnish supplies of fuel. Markets and 

 easy means of communication having been formed, the trade 

 would rapidly increase on all sides. The face of the country 

 would be entirely changed ; the people, finding new wants, 

 would become more civilised ; and Puno, instead of a city 

 with empty silent streets, and half a dozen balsas at its 

 anchorage, would be a flom-ishing and busy port.'^ These 

 bright prospects, however, will requii-e time, and a total 

 change in the pohtical condition of Peru, for then* realization 

 in a somewhat distant futm-e. 



It is also a very important question whether larches, firs, 

 and birch-trees might not be naturalized in the more 

 sheltered ravines of these lofty treeless regions ; where large 

 plantations might be formed for the supply of timber and fuel. 

 The Indians are now entirely dependent, for the framework of 

 their roofs, on the crooked poles of the quehua tree {Polylepis 

 tomentella) ; and for fuel on llama's dung and the tola shrubs 

 [Baccharis). The winters, from May to September, are not 

 nearly so cold as in Scotland, though very dry ; and, during 

 the summer or rainy season, though it is cold, there is plenty 

 of moisture. The introduction of these plantations Avould 



' An Englishman had a schooner 1 abandoned or broken up ; and tJiere is 

 on the lake, but I believe she is now | no craft at present but the reed balsas. 



