CHAPTER XVI. 



THE LLAMAS. 



THE AMERICAN CAMELID^E — THE GENUS AUCHENIA — THE GUANACO — ITS HABITS — THE LLAMA — 

 ITS USE AS A BEAST OF BURDEN — THE ALPACA OR PACO — ITS WOOL — THE VICUNA — INDIAN 

 HUNTS. 



THE American representatives of the family Camelid^e are, like 

 all American animals, smaller than their Old World kindred. 

 They are to the Camel, as the Puma is to the Lion. The former, 

 indeed, being dwellers in the mountain ranges, cannot be expected to 

 attain the size of the " ships of the desert." They are distinguished from 

 the camels not only by their less size, but by the absence of a hump, by 

 their large ears and eyes, and their long woolly coats. The feet are very 

 different from those of the true camels, the toes being completely 

 divided, and furnished with a small rough cushion beneath, and a strong 

 claw-like hoof above, so that the foot can take a firm hold of the rocky 

 and uneven ground on which they live. Altogether, they have a very 

 ovine look, suggesting to the spectator a long-legged, long-necked sheep. 



GENUS AUCHENIA. 



Naturalists are not agreed as to the number of species into which the 

 South American camels ought to be divided. Some attribute the differ- 

 ences between the various kinds to the effects of domestication, but the 

 natives — with whom the investigator, Tschudi, agrees — always assert that 

 there are four distinct species. Two of these, the Guanaco and Vicuna, 

 are still wild ; the Llama and Alpaca, on the other hand, have been 

 tamed since time immemorial. They were the beasts of burden in Peru 

 when the Spanish conquerors first entered the kingdom of the Incas, and 

 the Peruvians themselves have a tradition that the taming of these crea- 

 tures took place in those far back days when their gods used to walk the 



