ASPECTS OF TROPICAL NATURE 



or even wintry aspect. A few arid compositse and yellow 

 echinocacti are quite unable to relieve the dreary landscape ; 

 and even the large-flowered calceolarias, the blue gentians, the 

 sweet-smelling verbenas, the dwarfish cruciferse, and many 

 other Alpine plants, the usual ornaments of the higher moun- 

 tain regions, are here almost suffocated by the dense grasses. 

 But rarely the eye meets with a solitary quenua tree {Polylepis 

 raceniosa) of crippled growth, or with large spaces covered 

 with red-b^own ratania shrubs, which are carefully collected for 

 fuel, or for roofing the wretched huts of the scanty population 

 of these desolate highlands. 



The cold climate of the Puna naturally confines agriculture 

 to very narrow limits. The only cultivated plant which grows 

 to maturity is the maca fa species of tropseolum), the tuberous 

 roots of which are used like the potato, and form in many 

 parts the chief food of the inhabitants. This plant grows best 

 at an elevation of twelve or thirteen thousand feet, and is not 

 planted in the lower regions, where its roots are said to be 

 completely unpalatable. Barley is also cultivated in the Puna, 

 but never ripens, and is cut green for forage. 



The animal kingdom is more amply represented in this bleak 

 table-land ; for there is no want of food on the grass-covered 

 plains, and wherever this exists, there is room for the develop- 

 ment of animals appropriate to the climate. 



Thus the Llama and its near relations, the Alpaca,the Hua- 

 nacii, and the Vicuna, the largest four-footed animals which 

 Peru possessed before the Spaniards in- 

 troduced the horse and the ox, are all 

 natives of the Puna. Long before the 

 invasion of Pizarro, the llama was used 

 by the ancient Peruvians as a beast of 

 burthen, and was not less serviceable to 

 them than the camel to the Arabs of 

 the desert. The wool served for the fa- 

 brication of a coarse cloth ; the milk and 

 flesh, as food; the skin, as a warm covering or mantle; and without 

 the assistance of the llama, it would have been impossible for 

 the Indians to transport goods or provisions over the high table- 

 lands of the Andes, or for the Incas to have founded and main- 

 taineii their vast empire. The llama is also historically remark- 



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