108 LAKE TITICACA. Chap. VII. 



CHAPTEE VII. 



LAKE TITICACA. 



The Aymara Indians — • Their antiquities • — Tiahuanaco — Coati — SiUustani 

 — Copacabana. 



The region which is di-ained by rivers flowing from the 

 maritime cordiUera and the eastern range of the Andes into 

 lake Titieaca consists of elevated plateaux, seldom less than 

 13,000 feet above the sea, which were orginally inhabited 

 by the Aymara race of Indians, a people differing in some 

 respects from the Indians of Cuzco and further north, and 

 whose civilization dates from a period far anterior to that 

 of the Incas. Their language is different from the Quichua 

 of the Incas, though evidently a sister tongue, and it is still 

 spoken by the Ajrmara Indians from Puno to the central 

 parts of Bolivia, including all the shores of lake Titieaca. 

 I did not, however, observe much difference between the 

 Indians of Puno, who speak Aymara, and the Quichua 

 Indians of Cuzco. The men are, perhaps, somewhat stouter ; 

 but they are the same race in all essential points. 



The lake of Titieaca, the great feature in the region 

 inhabited by the Aymara Indians, is about eighty miles 

 long by forty broad ; being by far the largest lake in South 

 America. It is divided into two parts by the peninsula of 

 Copacabana ; the southern division, called the lake of 

 Huaqui, being eight leagues long by seven, and united to 

 the greater lake by the strait of Tiquina. A number of 

 rivers, which are swoUen and of considerable volume during 

 the rainy season, flow into the lake. The largest of these 

 is the Kamiz, which is formed by the junction of the two 

 rivers of Pucara and Azangaro, and enters the lake at its 



