Haunts of the Condor in Peru. 285 



It is generally asserted that condors are only seen in groups 

 of three or four, but never in large companies, like vultures. 

 This is hardly the case, for in our narrative it may be observed 

 that the attack was made by a rather large flock of them. In 

 1854, the writer saw a group of fifty condors, near the Garacol, 

 or zig-zag road at Iquique. He was also informed that a hundred 

 or more may be seen hovering over the cattle estates in Chile. 

 In 1820-3, when there was whale-fishing off Coquimbo, the offal 

 would float on shore, and as many as two or three hundred 

 would collect to gorge on the remains. I was once exploring 

 with Don Jorge the mountain of Molle, near the nitrate of 

 soda works of La Noria, on the summit of which there is an 

 abandoned silver mine. Having entered it to rest and get out 

 of the intense heat of the sun for awhile, we very soon had 

 to make our exit in consequence of becoming thickly covered 

 with what we afterwards learnt were the lice of the condor. 

 Such a locality is called their alojamiento, resting-place, or 

 look-out. On another occasion, exploring some high moun- 

 tains overlooking the great saline table-land of Tamarugal, and 

 where the newly discovered salts of borax exist, we came upon 

 another condor alojamiento, on an exposed rocky crag, but 

 here we only observed a collection of their ordure. It is from 

 such a spot that the condor watches for dead and dying mules, 

 on the tracks to or from the various qficinas or nitrate works. 



I once observed a young condor perched on the sore back 

 pecking at the wound of a mule who had just strength enough 

 to slowly crawl along. I drove the bird away, and shot the 

 mule. 



In 1852, whilst Don Jorge was travelling from Iquique to 

 the Noria, a condor fell from a great height, just before him 

 and his party, and was quite dead; had it fallen on any of them, 

 the individual must have been unhorsed and bruised. 



It might be expected that such a remarkable bird would 

 make its appearance in the local mythologies, and we find 

 that the worship of the condor, together with that of serpents, 

 and other animals, was celebrated in the early times of Peru. 

 On the pre-Incarial monuments of Tia-Huanaco, situated to 

 the south of Lake Titicaca, are sculptured the heads of large 

 birds, most probably intended for the condor, and likely to have 

 received the adoration of the builders of those most ancient 

 remains. 



