168 STEPPES AND DESERTS. 



them in the high plateau between Quito and Riobaraba, 

 are a great ornament to the landscape. The Moromoro of 

 Chili appears to be a mere variety of the lama. Vicunas, 

 Guanacoes, and Alpacas, still live wild at elevations of from 

 13000 to 16000 feet above the level of the sea. The two 

 latter species are sometimes met with tamed, but the guanaco 

 only rarely. The alpaca does not bear the warmer climate 

 of the lower elevations so well as the lama. Since the 

 introduction of the more useful horses, mules, and asses, 

 (the latter acquire great spirit and beauty within the tro- 

 pics), the custom of rearing and using the lama and the 

 alpaca as beasts of burden, in the mountains and among 

 the mines, has much decreased. But the wool, of such 

 different qualities in respect to fineness, is still an important 

 article in the industry of the inhabitants of the mountains. 

 In Chili the wild and the tamed guanaco are distinguished 

 by separate names; the wild being called Luan, and the 

 tame Chilihueque. The wide dissemination of the wild 

 guanaco, from the Peruvian Cordilleras to Tierra del Fuego, 

 sometimes in herds of 500, has been favoured by the cir- 

 cumstance that these animals can swim with great ease from 

 island to island, so that the Patagonian fiords offer no 

 obstacle to their wanderings.- (See the pleasing descriptions 

 by Darwin in his Journal, 1845, p. 66.) 



South of the Gila River, which, together with the Bio 

 Colorado, enters the Californian Gulf or Mar de Cortes, 

 stand, in the solitude of the Steppe, the enigmatical ruins of 

 the Aztec Palace, called by the Spaniards las Casas grandes. 

 When the Aztecs, about the year 1160, came from the un- 



