The War with Nature. 79 



track them to their hiding places in the thorny 

 thickets overhanging the valley. I was told that 

 not less than a hundred pumas were killed annually 

 by the shepherds and herdsmen. The depredations 

 of the locusts are on a much larger scale. In 

 summer I frequently rode over miles of ground 

 where they literally carpeted the earth with their 

 numbers, rising in clouds before me, causing a 

 sound as of a loud wind with their wings. It was 

 always the same, I was told ; every year they 

 appeared at some point in the valley to destroy the 

 crops and pasturage. Then there were birds of 

 many species and in incalculable numbers. To an 

 idle sportsman without a stake in the country it was 

 paradise. At one spot I noticed all the wheat 

 ruined, most of the stalks being stripped and broken, 

 presenting a very curious appearance ; I was sur- 

 prised to hear from the owner of the desolate fields 

 that in this instance the coots had been the culprits. 

 Thousands of these birds came up from the river 

 every night, and in spite of all he could do to 

 frighten them away they had succeeded in wasting 

 his corn. 



On either side of the long straggling settlement 

 spreads the uninhabited desert uninhabitable, in 

 fact, for it is waterless, with a sterile gravelly soil 

 that only produces a thorny vegetation of dwarf 

 trees. It serves, however, as a breeding-place for 

 myriads of winged creatures ; and never a season 

 passes but it sends down its hungry legions of one 

 kind or another into the valley. During my stay 



