"But I calculate that this is all Indian gammon or superstition.
"As for me, I've been always more at home in the woods and forests, and on the mountain's brow.
"I'm not going to boast, boys, but I've climbed the highest hills of the Cordilleras, where I have had no companion save the condor.
"You Europeans call the eagle the bird of Jove. If that is so, I want to ask them where the condor comes in.
"Why, your golden eagle of Scottish wilds isn't a circumstance to the condor of the Andes. He is no more to be compared to this great forest vulture than a spring chicken is to a Christmas turkey.
"But the condor is only one of a thousand wild birds of prey, or of song, found in the Andean regions or giant Cordilleras.
"And at lower altitude we find the llamas, the guanacos, and herds of wild vicuñas.
"You may come across the puma and the jaguar also, and be sorry you've met.
"Then there are goats, foxes, and wild dogs, as well as the viscacha and the chinchilla, to say nothing of deer.
"But on the great lake itself, apart from all thought of fish, you need never go without a jolly good dinner if the rarest of water-fowl will please you. Ducks and geese galore, and other species too many to name."