2G8 THE ROAD TO BOLIVIA 



as their lives are spent coming and going across the burning sands ot 

 the desert, it is a matter of inditi'erence how long the journe}' lasts. 

 The animals are the capital of the (irrcrio. 'I'he desert is his home. 

 His wife helps in the driving and slee[)S by. his side on the sand. 

 They have no shelter, but wra}) their j)o?if/i('.s around them and lie 

 down to pleasant dreams with their bare feet and legs exposed while 

 ice forms in little streams around them. As the camel to the i)eoi>le 

 of the deserts of Asia, so is the llama to those who dwell in the Andes, 

 a faithful and enduring beast, without which the}' would be heli)less, 

 for mules and horses cannot endure the rarefied atmos})here. Even 

 the burros have their nostrils slit in order to breathe. When a horse 

 is first. l)rought into the high altitudes of the Andes, the blood drips 

 from his mouth, ears, and nose. Mules are more enduring, and burros 

 are better still, but the llama is native to the snow-clad peaks and 

 thrives best where otlier animals find existence impossible. 



This mysterious region is the most elevated of human habitations 

 excepting Tibet, which is known to Asiatic geographers as the " dome 

 of the world." The latter represents only mountain pastures, but the 

 great Andean basin supports towns and cities, afibrds food for herds 

 of cattle, llamas, vicunas, and sheep, and produces annual harvests. 



Here, at a mean level of 12.645 feet above the sea. is a lake almost 

 as large as Lake Erie, the highest navigable water, of immeasurable 

 depth. Tiie fossils upon the mountains that inclose it leave no room 

 to doubt that within a recent geological ])eriod it formed a vast in- 

 land sea, extending possibh' over the entire basin between the two 

 ranges of the Andes, whose waters now have no visible means of escape. 

 The eastern boundary is formed by the loftiest mountains of the Amer- 

 ican continent and the greatest continuous snow range in the world. 

 Nowhere else within Innnan vision can such a battalion of monsters 

 be seen, and in sunshine they remind one of a })rocession of mighty 

 icel)ergs, rising with majestic dignity behind a screen that is formed 

 by the intervening foothills. 



A curious phenomenon is that metal never rusts in the waters of 

 Lake Titicaca. You can throw in a chain, anchor, or any article of 

 ordinary iron and let it lie for weeks, and when you haul it up it will 

 be as clean and bright as when it came from the foundr}' ; and, what 

 is stranger still, rust that has formed upon metallic objects elsewhere 

 will peel off when immersed in its waters. 



The greatest interest centers in the Island of Titicaca, the Eden and 

 Nazareth of the Inca traditions, where appeared their Adam and Eve, 



i 



