High Table- Lands of Peru. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE PUNA, OR THE HIGH TABLE-LANDS OF PERU AND BOLIVIA. 



Striking Contrast with the Llanos — Northern Character of their Climate — 

 The Chuiiu — The Siirumpe — The Veta: its Influence upon Man, Horses, 

 Mules, and Cats — The Vegetation of the Puna — The Maca — The Llama : 

 its invaluable Services — The Huanacu — The Alpaca — The Vicuiias : Mode 

 of Hunting Them — The Cliacu — The Bolas — The Chinchilla — The Condor 

 — Wild Bulls and Wild Dogs — Lovely Mountain Valleys. 



BETWEEN the two mighty parallel mountain-chains of the 

 Cordillera and the Andes*, the giant bulwarks of Western 

 South America, we find, extending throughout the whole length 

 of Peru and Bolivia, at a height of from ten to fourteen thousand 

 feet above the level of the sea, vast plateaus, or table-lands, 

 which are named, in the language of the country, the Puna, or 

 " the Uninhabited." They present a striking contrast to the 

 Llanos of Venezuela ; for though situated, like these sultry 

 plains, within the torrid zone, their great elevation paralyses 

 the effects of a vertical sun, and transfers the rigours of the 

 north to the very centre of the tropical world. 



Their climate is hardly less bleak, unfriendly, and winterly 

 than that of the high snow-ridges which bound them on either 



* Though frequently confounded, even by the Peruvian Creoles, the western 

 cliain, running parallel with the coast of the Pacific, is properly the Cordillera ; 

 wliile the eastern chain, which generally runs in the same direction as the former, 

 has always been named the Andes by the Indian natives. 



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