OPPOSITION TO THEIR USE. 
31 
had a great predilection, were still very common in the 
Bouth of Spain. A Biscayan, Juan de Iteinaga, carried 
some of these animals at his own expense to Peru. Father 
Acosta saw them at the foot of the Andes, about the end 
of the sixteenth century; hut little care being taken of 
them, they scarcely ever bred, and the race soon became 
extinct. In those times of oppression and cruelty, which 
have been described as the era of Spanish glory, the com- 
mendataries (encomenderos) let out the Indians to travel- 
lers like beasts of burden. They were assembled by hun- 
dreds, either to carry merchandise across the Cordilleras, 
or to follow the armies in their expeditions of discovery and 
pillage. The Indians endured this service more patiently, 
because, owing to the almost total want of domestic ani- 
mals, they had long been constrained to perform it, though 
in a less inhuman manner, under the government of their 
own chiefs. The introduction of camels attempted by 
Juan de Iteinaga spread an alarm among the encomen- 
deros, who were, not by law, but in fact, lords of the Indian 
villages. The court listened to the complaints of the enco- 
menderos ; and in consequence America was deprived of 
one of the means which would have most facilitated inland 
communication, and the exchange of productions. Now, 
however, there is no reason why the introduction of camels 
should not be attempted as a general measure. Some 
hundreds of these useful animals, spread over the vast 
surface of America, in hot and barren places, would in a 
lew years have a powerful influence on the public prosperity. 
Provinces separated by steppes would then appear to be 
brought nearer to each other ; several kinds of inland mer- 
chandize would diminish in price on the coast ; and by in- 
creasing the number of camels, above all the species called 
Jiedjin, or ‘ the ship of the desert,’ a new life would be 
given to the industry and commerce of the New World. 
On the evening of the 22nd we continued our journey from 
Mocundo by Los Guay os to the city of Nueva Valencia. 
AY e passed a little forest of palm-trees, which resembled, by 
their appearance, and their leaves spread like a fan, the 
Chamaerops humilis of the coast of Barbary. The trunk, 
however, rises to twenty-four and sometimes thirty feet 
