HABITS OF THE LLAMA. 95 



goods packed on the backs of mules and donkeys, but 

 the llamas and their ways were a continual source of 

 interest. If the body be somewhat ungainly, the 

 head with its large lustrous eyes may fairly be called 

 beautiful. They vary extremely in colour. The pre- 

 vailing hues are between light brown and buff, but 

 we saw many quite white, and a few nearly black, 

 with a good many mottled in large patches of white, 

 and dark brown. The legs appear weak, and the 

 animal can bear but a light burthen. On the mountain 

 tracks, the load for a mule is three hundred pounds, 

 that for a donkey two hundred pounds, while a llama 

 can carry no more than a hundred pounds ; and when 

 any one attempts to increase the load, the animal lies 

 down and moans piteously. He seems, indeed, not 

 yet thoroughly resigned to domesticity, and there is 

 a note of ineffectual complaint about his bearing and 

 about all the sounds which he emits. One morning 

 I was so much struck by what appeared to be the 

 wailing of a child or a woman in distress, that I 

 followed the sound until, behind a rock, I discovered 

 a solitary llama that had somehow been separated 

 from his companions. The advantage of the llama in 

 the highlands of Peru, where fodder is scarce and 

 must often be carried from a distance, is that he is 

 able to shift for himself Where the herbage is so 

 coarse and so scanty that a donkey would starve, the 

 llama picks up a living from the woody stems of the 

 dwarf bushes that creep along the surface. 



Supposing that most of the plants growing on the 

 slopes around Chicla had been collected two days 

 before, I expected to find it expedient to go to some 



