184 



Panama, on the table-land of Mexico, and in 

 the deserts that separate the kingdom of Quito 

 from Peru, and Peru from Chili), camels would 

 be of the highest importance, to facilitate inland 

 commerce. It seems the more surprising, that 

 their introduction was not encouraged by the 

 government at the beginning of the conquest, as, 

 long after the taking of Grenada, camels, for 

 which the Moors had a great predilection, were 

 still very common in the South of Spain. A Bis- 

 cayan, Juan de Reinaga, carried some of these 

 animals at his own expense to Peru. Father 

 Acosta * saw them at the foot of the Andes, 

 toward the end of the sixteenth century ; but 

 little care being taken of them, they scarcely 

 ever bred, and the race soon became extinct. 

 In those times of oppression and calamity, which 

 have been described as the times of Spanish 

 glory, the commendataries ( encomenderos ) let out 

 the Indians to travellers like beasts of burden. 

 They were assembled by hundreds, either to 

 carry merchandize across the Cordilleras, or to 

 follow the armies in their expeditions of disco- 

 very and pillage. The Indians endured this ser- 

 vice more patiently, because, on account of the 

 almost total want of domestic animals, they had 

 long been constrained to perform it, though in a 

 less inhuman manner, under the government of 



t Hist, Nat. de Indias, lib. iv, c. 3&. 



