The frequent showers and snow-falls of the Puna naturally give rise to numerous swamps and lagunes, which afford nourishment to an abundance of birds,—such as the beautiful snow-white Huachua goose (Chloéphaga melanoptera), with dark-green wings of a metallic lustre; the licli, a species of plover; the ibis; the long-legged flamingo; the Quiulla gull (Larus serranus), and the gigantic coot (Fulica gigantea), which, unable to fly, dives in the cold waters, and builds its nest on the solitary stones which rise above the surface.
To the aboriginal animals of the Puna man has added the horse, the ox, the dog, and the sheep. In the more sheltered valleys there are estates possessing from 60,000 to 80,000 sheep, and from 400 to 500 oxen. During the wet season the herds are driven into the Altos or highest regions, often to a height of 15,000 feet; but when the frosty nights of the dry period of the year parch the grass, they are obliged to descend to the swampy valleys, where they have much to suffer from hunger. In many parts of the Puna, wild bulls render travelling very dangerous, as they sometimes rush upon man without any previous notice, though they generally announce their approach by a hoarse bellowing. But even then it is almost impossible to escape them in the open plain, and more than once Tschudi was only able, by a well-aimed shot, to save himself from the attack of one of these formidable animals.
Though not so dangerous, the half-wild Puna dogs (Canis Ingæ, Tschudi) are extremely troublesome to the traveller,—false, spiteful animals, which ferociously attack enemies far stronger than themselves; and, like the bull-dog, will rather suffer themselves to be cut to pieces than retreat. They have a particular antipathy to the white race, and it is rather a bold undertaking for the European traveller to approach the hut of an Indian that is guarded by these animals.
The frosts of winter and an eternal spring are nowhere found in closer proximity than in the Peruvian highlands, for deep valleys cleave the windy Puna; and when the traveller, benumbed by the cold blasts of the mountain-plains, descends into these sheltered gorges he almost suddenly finds himself transported from a northern climate to a terrestrial paradise. Situated at a height where the enervating power of the tropical sun is not felt, and where at the same time the air is not too rarefied, these pleasant mountain vales, protected by their rocky walls against the gusts of the Puna, enjoy all the advantages of a genial sky. Here the astonished European sees himself surrounded by the rich corn-fields, the green lucerne meadows, and the well-known fruit trees of his distant home, so that he might almost fancy that some friendly enchanter had transported him to his native country, if the cactuses and the agaves on the mountain-slopes by day, and the constellations of another hemisphere by night, did not remind him of the vast distance which separates him from the land of his birth.
There are regions in this remarkable country where the traveller may in the morning leave the snow-decked Puna hut, and before sunset pluck pine-apples and bananas on the cultivated margin of the primeval forest; where in the morning the stunted grasses and arid lichens of the naked plain remind him of the arctic regions, and where he may repose at night under the fronds of gigantic palms.
GUANO ISLAND.
CHAPTER IV.
THE PERUVIAN SAND-COAST.
Its desolate Character—The Mule is here the ‘Ship of the Desert.’—A Shipwreck and its Consequences—Sand-Spouts—Medanos—Summer and Winter—The Garuas—The Lomas—Change produced in their Appearance during the Season of Mists—Azara’s Fox—Wild Animals—Birds—Reptiles—The Chincha or Guano Islands.