INHABITANTS OF PEEU. 301 



Along the beach, especially at Huacho, crawfish are taken by the million. 

 The neighbouring waters also teem with fish, which in their turn attract myriads 

 of penguins, petrels, cormorants, and other aquatic fowl. 



Yl. 



Inhabitants of Peru. 



As in pre-Columbian times, the Quichuas are still the dominant people of 

 Peru. The term Quichua, said to mean " temperate climate," served originally to 

 distinguish the habitable plateau region from the desert PiDia of the snowy high- 

 lands, and then was extended to a whole section of the inhabitants. But according 

 to another etymology the Quichuas are the "men of understanding," those who 

 ** speak well," and in any case their language is still dominant amongst the 

 Peruvian population. It is, however, subdivided into several quite distinct 

 dialects, such as that of Ecuador, which is unintelligible to the people of South 

 Peru. The pronunciation, which is very soft in the northern regions, becomes 

 guttural and complicated with explosive letters in the south, and is also affected 

 by Spanish and Aymara elements in varying proportions. 



The national speech has been best preserved in Cuzco and the surrounding 

 district, where the natives held out longest in defence of their political indepen- 

 dence. This idiom is often spoken of as the " language of the Incas," because 

 emploj^ed by those potentates. They must, however, have themselves learnt it 

 from the nation, and the general name of the people should also be that of their 

 language. At the same time they may have affected a form of sj)eech somewhat 

 different from that of their subjects, and, in fact, it is stated by the early chronicles 

 that the court of Cuzco had its special idiom. 



Clements Markham quotes several words apparently answering in sound and 

 sense to corresponding Sanskrit terms, and he seems half inclined to accept such 

 coincidences as pointing to a Hindu origin of the old masters of Peru.* But, as 

 they said themselves, they came from the shores and islands of Lake Titicaca, that 

 is to say, from an Aymara land. It may therefore be assumed that Aymara was 

 their mother-tongue. 



Quichua, formerly prevalent throughout Tahuanti-Suyu, as the Inca empire 

 was called, is still current in all the provinces of that state forming part of the 

 present republics of Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chili and Argentina. In these 

 western regions it is the lengua general, corresponding to the Tupi-Guarani, which 

 is the lengoa geral of Brazil, Paraguay and Corrientes, that is, of the eastern 

 section of the southern continent. This " general language " of the Andean 

 uplands, the mother-tongue of two millions of people, has held its ground in all 

 the lands where it had been introduced by the Incas. In the rural districts of 

 the Sierra it is nowhere yielding to the encroachments of Spanish ; but, on the 



* Clements 11. Markham, Cuzco and Lima. 



