44 THE WORLD'S WONDERS. 



itself outwardly in both men and animals in great bleeding boils 

 and carbuncles, which occasion much distress, and often result in 

 death." 



The veto, shows itself also in animals unaccustomed to moun- 

 tain traveling. They proceed more and more slowly, frequently 

 stop, trembling all over, and fall to the ground. If not allowed 

 to rest they inevitably die. The natives are accustomed to slit 

 the nostrils of their mules and horses in order to allow a greater 

 influx of air. Mules and asses are less affected by the vela than 

 horses ; but it is fatal to cats, who are unable to live at a height 

 of more than 13,000 feet. 



Another consequence of the diminished pressure of the air is 

 that water boils at so low a temperature that meat, vegetables 

 and eggs cannot be boiled sufficienty to be edible, and whoever 

 wishes a warm meal in the Puna must have it baked or roasted. 



Winter and spring are no where in such close proximity as in 

 the Peruvian highlands, for deep valleys furrow the bleak Puna, 

 and when the traveler, benumbed by the cold blasts of the moun- 

 tain plateaus, descends into these valleys he finds the change as 

 great as between the rigors of a Polar climate and the soft balm 

 of delicious spring redolent with nature's perfumes. There are 

 regions in Peru where a traveler may, in the morning, leave the 

 snow-covered Puna hut in which he has shivered over night, and 

 before sunset pluck pine-apples and bananas on the cultivated 

 margin of a forest and repose in comfort under no other cover- 

 ing than the drooping feathery leaves of gigantic palms. 



But in this vast elevated region there is nothing else which 

 possesses so deep human interest as Lake Titicaca, for in it is 

 embosomed the sacred island, to which the Incas traced their 

 origin, and which to this day is to their descendants all that 

 Jerusalem and Mecca are to Christians and MohammedanSc 

 This beautiful body of fresh water is at the elevation of 12,864 

 feet above the sea, higher than any point in Europe except the 

 ten loftiest peaks of the Alps. It is 120 miles long, and from 

 fifty to sixty miles wide. Though the temperature falls quite 



low the lake never freezes over, but ice forms along its shores. 



' 



