The llama is one of the proudest animals in the world. No matter where you see this aristocrat of quadrupeds he holds his head high up in the air, and looks out upon the earth as though he owned it. Unlike the camel the llama never sulks, although sometimes stubborn. I have seen camels grunt and groan as the loads were placed on their backs. They will sometimes snap viciously at whoever passes near, and at other times tears will flow down a camel’s cheeks like a baby’s, so it is said. The llama always carries his burden with a proud air, scanning the landscape as he goes, and pricking up his ears with interest at every new or strange thing. He will carry a load of just so much, about one hundred pounds. If a greater load is strapped on his back than he is accustomed to carry, the llama will neither grunt nor groan, but he calmly kneels down and will not move until the burden is lightened.
The llamas are the most common burden-bearing animals in Bolivia and on the high plateaus of Peru to-day. They will also be found in the extreme northern part of Chile on the Andean slopes. They form the great freight-carriers in that portion of the Andes, but cannot be worked successfully at a lower altitude than two thousand feet. They are never seen as near the coast as Lima, the Peruvian capital. One will see llama trains every day in La Paz, or the other towns of Bolivia, and herds of these animals feeding on the plains around Lake Titicaca are a common sight. They are principally used in the carrying of ore from the mines to the smelters or nearest railway station. These little animals, which are said to have the head of a camel, the body of a sheep and the legs of a deer, are only about four and one-half feet high and are really beautiful creatures. They are gentle when well treated, and become very fond of their masters. The Indians pet them and talk to them much as though they were human beings. They sometimes dye the wool on the backs in different colours, and tie bright-coloured ribbons through holes which they make in the llamas’ ears. The wool of the llama is much coarser than that of sheep, but one can see the Indian women spinning this wool into threads, and then weaving it into cloth in many places. It can easily be used in the coarse garments worn by these people. If offended the llama has a curious habit of spitting on the offender, which is rather disagreeable, as I know from experience. As the llama is a cud-chewing animal it seems to have this material always ready for such occasions.
CHAPTER VIII
A LABORATORY OF NATURE
The great desert of Tarapacá, which stretches along the coast of Chile for hundreds of miles, has proven to be the most valuable of its entire possessions. And yet it is as barren a desert as one could find on the surface of the globe. Darwin thus describes a part of it that he travelled over: “A complete and utter desert. The road was strewn with the bones and dried skins of the many beasts of burden which had perished on it from fatigue. Excepting the vulture which preys on the carcasses, I saw neither bird, quadruped, reptile, nor insect. On the coast mountains at the height of about two thousand feet, where during the season the clouds generally hang, a very few cacti were growing in the clefts of the rock, and the loose sand was strewn over with a lichen which grows quite unattached. In some parts it was of sufficient quantity to tinge the sand, as seen from a distance, of a pale yellowish colour.” It is this dry climate that has made possible the existence of the great nitrate deposits along this coast. Rainfall, even in moderate quantities, would dissolve the nitrate. These deposits lie as a rule just within the coast range of mountains.
Many theories have been advanced as to the cause of this chemical composition. The most ingenious one, perhaps, is that nitric acid is formed by a flash of lightning passing through a moist atmosphere, and electrical storms are very common in the Cordilleras. The other is that this coast was originally submerged in the ocean, and was gradually upheaved. This would leave a line of lagoons and marshes, in which seaweed and other plants flourished. As the lagoons successively dried up, the plants would be decomposed and nitric acid and iodine formed. This, united in combination with the gypsum-yielding soda found there, formed nitrate of soda. At any rate, Nature, by some mysterious process, has formed a chemical combination which has been of inestimable value to the world in general.
This desert coast is not all productive of nitrate. Some sections are valueless, and some produce other chemical products. One can take a narrow-gauge train at Antofagasta and travel inland for hundreds of miles across the Andes and into the plateaus of Bolivia, and the entire distance is almost as void of green as the great Sahara Desert. Occasionally there is a scrubby tree which looks forlorn in its loneliness. There are salt plains which reach to the hills on either side. In one place there is a great salt field that is estimated to cover more than eighty thousand acres. This produces almost pure chloride of sodium in crystallized form. The thickness of the salt layer is not known, but some wells are as much as eighty feet deep and the bottom of the deposit has not been reached. It is a good quality of salt. There are borax lakes along the route, where enough borax can be secured to supply the entire world. But it is from the beds of nitrate of soda that the greatest wealth of this region is secured. To it is due the prosperity of all the ports from Pisagua to Taltal.
This chemical product, which we call Chilean saltpetre, and which is locally known as salitre, is found over hundreds of square miles of territory. The only visible boundaries between the different owners are marked by white posts at the corners of the different properties. With this exception there are no marks whatever on the landscape, and no signs of life except the factories, known as oficinas, the numerous homes of the employees made of corrugated iron, and the workmen who are engaged in blasting and hauling away this mineral. The nitrate beds follow the coast line at a distance of from fifteen to a hundred miles from the sea, generally at an elevation of from four thousand to five thousand feet, and in deposits which vary from one to four miles in width. They reach from near Antofagasta to a point some distance north of Iquique. In some places the deposits play out, but they reappear again a little farther on. The fields that have been exploited look as though they had been ploughed over by gigantic ploughs, for immense clods are scattered here and there wherever the work has been carried on. On either side of this strip there is simply a mass of sand and rock, which extends from the sea to the topmost peaks of the Andes. There is, however, a wonderful colouring on the slopes of the mountains, and one will see many tints of violet, green, lemon and gray within the horizon.