LAKE TITICACA. 



95 



erally much. less. In some places the water is so shoal that there is just 

 room to push a balsa through the rushes. The deepest water is found 

 on the eastern or Bolivian side. 



This lake is about forty miles wide, and eighty miles long. By the 

 appearance of the flat land we found on the north side of it, we judge 

 it was at one time very much longer and deeper. 



In the rainy'season the rivers are loaded with soil from the mountains 

 around, which being emptied into the lake, settles, and the water flows 

 off, leaving behind its load of earth ; and so the work from time im- 

 memorial has been going on. This great lake is gradually filling up; 

 the water 'is getting shoaler every year; finally there will be a single 

 stream flowing through what, in future ages, may be called Titicaca 

 valley. 



The easterly storms beat against the eastern sides of mountains 

 scorched into dust by the rays of the sun in the dry season. There is 

 no sod or growth to protect the soil from the heavy rains, which wash 

 it away much more than on the western side. 



