[26]. p. 11.—“The Care of Animals yielding milk.—Ruins of the Aztek fortress.”

The two oxen already named, Bos americanus and Bos moschatus, are peculiar to the northern part of the American continent. But the natives—

Queis neque mos, neque cultus erat, nec jungere tauros

Virg. Æn. i. 316.

drank the fresh blood, and not the milk, of these animals. Some few exceptions have indeed been met with, but only among tribes who at the same time cultivated maize. I have already observed that Gomara speaks of a people in the north-west of Mexico who possessed herds of tame bisons, and derived their clothing, food, and drink from these animals. This drink was probably the blood,[[FO]] for, as I have frequently remarked, a dislike of milk, or at least the absence of its use, appears before the arrival of Europeans to have been common to all the natives of the New Continent, as well as to the inhabitants of China and Cochin China, notwithstanding their great vicinity to true pastoral tribes. The herds of tame lamas which were found in the highlands of Quito, Peru, and Chili, belonged to a settled and agricultural population. Pedro de Cieça de Leon[[FP]] seems to imply, although assuredly as a very rare exception to the general mode of life, that lamas were employed on the Peruvian mountain plain of Callao for drawing the plough.[[FQ]] Ploughing was, however, generally conducted in Peru by men only.[[FR]] Barton has made it appear probable that the American buffalo had from an early period been reared among some West Canada tribes on account of its flesh and hide.[[FS]] In Peru and Quito the lama is nowhere found in its original wild condition. According to the statements made to me by the natives, the lamas on the western declivity of the Chimborazo became wild at the time when Lican, the ancient residence of the rulers of Quito, was laid in ashes. In Central Peru, in the Ceja de la Montaña, cattle have in like manner become completely wild; a small but daring race that often attacks the Indians. The natives call them “Vacas del Monte” or “Vacas Cimarronas.”[[FT]] Cuvier’s assertion that the lama had descended from the guanaco, still in a wild state, which had unfortunately been extensively propagated by the admirable observer, Meyen,[[FU]] has now been completely refuted by Tschudi.

The Lama, the Paco or Alpaca, and the Guanaco are three originally distinct species of animals.[[FV]] The Guanaco (Huanacu in the Quichua language) is the largest of the three, and the Alpaca, measured from the ground to the crown of the head, the smallest. The Lama is next to the Guanaco in height. Herds of Lamas, when as numerous as I have seen them on the elevated plateaux between Quito and Riobamba, are a great ornament to the landscape. The Moromoro of Chili appears to be a mere variety of the lama. The different species of camel-like sheep found still wild at elevations of from 13,000 to upwards of 16,000 feet above the level of the sea, are the Vicuña, the Guanaco, and the Alpaca; of these the two latter species are also found tame, although this is but rarely the case with the Guanaco. The alpaca does not bear a warm climate as well as the lama. Since the introduction of the more useful horse, mule, and ass (the latter of which exhibits great animation and beauty in tropical regions), the lama and alpaca have been less generally reared and employed as beasts of burden in the mining districts. But their wool, which varies so much in fineness, is still an important branch of industry among the inhabitants of the mountains. In Chili the wild and the tame guanaco are distinguished by special names, the former being called “Luan” and the latter “Chilihueque.” The wide dissemination of the wild Guanacos from the Peruvian Cordilleras to Tierra del Fuego, sometimes in herds of 500 heads of cattle, has been facilitated by the circumstance that these animals can swim with great facility from island to island, and are not therefore impeded in their passage across the Patagonian channels or fiords.[[FW]]

South of the river Gyla, which together with the Rio Colorado pours itself into the Californian Gulf (Mar de Cortes), lie in the midst of the dreary steppe the mysterious ruins of the Aztek Palace, called by the Spaniards “las Casas Grandes.” When, about the year 1160, the Azteks first appeared in Anahuac, having migrated from the unknown land of Aztlan, they remained for a time on the borders of the Gyla river. The Franciscan monks, Garces and Font, who saw the “Casas Grandes” in 1778, are the last travellers who have visited these remains. According to their statement, the ruins extended over an area exceeding sixteen square miles. The whole plain was covered with the broken fragments of ingeniously painted earthenware vessels. The principal palace, if the word can be applied to a house formed of unburnt clay, is 447 feet in length and 277 feet in breadth.[[FX]]

The Tayé of California, a delineation of which is given by the Padre Venegas, appears to differ but inconsiderably from the Ovis musimon of the Old Continent. The same animal has also been seen in the Stony Mountains near the source of the River of Peace, and differs entirely from the small white and black spotted goat-like animal found on the Missouri and Arkansas. The synonyme of Antilope furcifer, A. tememazama. (Smith,) and Ovis montana is still very uncertain.

[27]. p. 11.—“The culture of farinaceous grasses.”

The original habitat of the farinaceous grasses, like that of the domestic animals which have followed man since his earliest migrations, is shrouded in obscurity. Jacob Grimm has ingeniously derived the German name for corn, Getraide, from the old German “gitragidi,” “getregede.” “It is as it were the tame fruit (fruges, frumentum) that has fallen into the hands of man, as we speak of tame animals in opposition to those that are wild.”[[FY]]