8 Gardiner G. Hxibhard — Soiith America. 



the trunks of these trees are suspended the habitations of a 

 tribe of Indians, who make their fires on mats hung in the air 

 and filled with moist clay. The same palm tree furnishes also 

 food and wine and clothing, and thus supplies every want and 

 even the luxuries of life. 



The Indian race as a whole is believed to be superior to both 

 the negro and the Malay, as neither of those races has ever 

 attained to the civilization of the Incas of Peru or of the Indians 

 of ' Mexico and the Aztecs of Central America. Many of their 

 myths and folk tales are common, not only to the Indians of one 

 part of the country, but also to other tribes in distant parts of 

 the continent, and even to the negroes of Africa, and the Arabs 

 of upper Egypt. All the tribes on the continent have substan- 

 tially the same habits of life, the same methods of warfare, the 

 same general characteristics, and a language built substantially 

 on the same j)lan. 



From these observations it might seem that the Indian tribes 

 of South America were allied to those of Africa or to the Malays? 

 but on further consideration the similarity seems due rather to a 

 like stage of civilization than to identity of race. 



The Incas of Peru. 



In crossing from Arequipa in Peru to La Paz in Bolivia, the 

 road ascends the Andes, makes a slight descent into the barren, 

 desolate valley between the Andes and Cordilleras, crosses Lake 

 Titicaca, and then descends to La Paz. Lake Titicaca, the 

 largest lake of South America, is on a plateau between twelve 

 and thirteen thousand feet in height, the most elevated table 

 land on the globe, excepting Thibet. This lake is surrounded 

 by lofty, snow-clad mountains, the highest of which is Illampa, 

 22,300 feet in height. 



On this lake are the remains of the most ancient civilization 

 of South America. Cyclopean ruins of temples and fortresses 

 stand as perpetual monuments of a vanished culture ; when and 

 by whom they were erected, we know not ; their builders left no 

 other record of their existence. The wandering Indians told 

 the first Spaniards that they existed before the sun shone in the 

 heavens. From one of the rocky islands of Lake Titicaca, about 

 the year 1000 or 1100, the Sun, parent of mankind and giver of 

 every good gift, taking compassion on the degraded condition of 



