807 



civilized nations, who inhabited the table-lands 

 of the Andes of New Grenada; " of a very 

 powerful prince with one eye (indio tuerto), and 

 of animals less than stags, but fit for riding like 

 Spanish horses." Ordaz had no idea, that these 

 animals were the lamas, or ovejas del Peru. 

 Must we admit that the lamas, which were 

 used in the Andes to draw the plough and as 

 beasts of burden, but not for riding, were already 

 common on the north and east of Quito ? I 

 find that Orellana saw these animals at the 

 river of Amazons, above the confluence of the 

 Rio Negro, consequently in a climate very dif- 

 ferent from that of the table-land of the Andes # . 

 The fable of an army of Omaguas mounted on 

 lamas served to embellish the account given by 

 the fellow travellers of Felipe de Urre of their 

 adventurous expedition to the Upper Caqueta. 

 We cannot be sufficiently attentive to these tra- 

 ditions, which seem to prove, that the domestic 

 animals of Quito and Peru had already begun to 

 descend the Cordilleras, and spread themselves 

 by degrees in the eastern regions of South Ame- 

 rica. 



Herera, the treasurer of the expedition of 

 Ordaz, was sent in 1533 by the governor Gero- 

 nimo de Ortal, to pursue the discovery of the 

 Oroonoko and the Meta. He lost nearly thir- 



* Herera, Dec. 6, p. 195, 



