HISTORY OF THE LLAMA 
from the time when the country was much colder, and when, whenever 
storms or other distress afflicted the animals, they were accustomed to seek 
a covert in the bushes which grew only alongside the sunken streams.” 
They furnish the principal flesh food available to the nomads of Patagonia, 
and also their main resource for tentage, clothing, and leather, and are 
persistently hunted by the cattle herders and steadily encroaching farmers, 
so that their former abundance is much diminished. A fully grown male 
huanaco stands about four feet high at the shoulder, and is covered with a 
thick coat of long, almost woolly hair, pale reddish in color, and longest 
and palest on the under parts. Domestication is possible, but now is car- 
ried no farther than here and there to make a pet of uncertain temper and 
fidelity. Yet in the prehistoric past, taming and artificial breeding estab- 
lished from this stock two truly domestic animals of the utmost importance, 
— the llama for work and the alpaca (properly, “el paco’’) for wool. 
The llama became a domesticated beast of burden among 
the natives of Peru unknown centuries before the Spanish con- 
quest, and still. serves as the only trustworthy carrier 
in the higher Andes, although in certain parts it has 
been largely superseded of late by mules, horses, or railroads. 
It is astonishing to read of its primitive abundance, Spanish 
chroniclers relating that three hundred thousand were used 
for transportation at San Luis Potosi alone during the flourish- 
ing development of the silver mines following the Spanish 
seizure of the country; yet only the males carry burdens, 
females being kept for milk and flesh. The load seldom ex- 
ceeds one hundred pounds, for if it is too heavy the animal lies 
down and obstinately refuses to move until it is lessened to his 
liking. In the rougher and more secluded parts of the Peru- 
vian mountains large herds still exist, and long trains may be 
met walking docilely in single file, attended by a few Indians 
and making a dozen miles a day, feeding by the wayside as they 
march, for the animals will not graze at night, — indeed, in 
many ways they are extremely vexatious and unamiable, and few 
men other than the Andean Indians are able to manage them. 
Llama. 
“A flock of laden lamas journeying over the tablelands,” as Tschudi 
describes it, “‘is a beautiful sight. They proceed at a slow and measured 
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