"In 1857," was the reply; "and the singular fact is that the difficulty in adapting the llama to our country is that the food he obtains is too good for him. What we give to our cattle and sheep does not seem to agree with him; he prefers inferior grasses, together with pea-vines, bean-stalks, straw, and such things, which our cattle would starve upon; and where he has been turned out to graze in low regions he invariably suffers from disease of the skin. In 1857 somebody shipped seventy-two of these animals from Peru to New York; only thirty-eight lived to reach the city, and were wintered on a farm on Long Island. In the spring those that remained were sold for museums and menageries, and some of them were sent to Australia. It is quite possible that the llama would thrive on the great plains between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains; the only difficulty would be in protecting the herds from the lawless hunters until they had become sufficiently numerous and wild to take care of themselves as the antelopes do."
INDIANS AND LLAMA AMONG THE RUINS.
After a glance at the town, with its open market and massive cathedral, our friends strolled to the shore of the bay on which Puno is built. It is a sluggish body of water, fringed all around with tortora or rushes, which grow profusely, and serve many purposes. They are used for making baskets, lining the walls of houses, filling beds, thatching roofs, and in other ways are of material advantage to the inhabitants of the region bordering the lake. They are an important item of fuel, though they burn too quickly to give off much heat; cattle feed upon these rushes, and as our friends stood on the shore of the bay they saw cows and oxen in the water nearly up to their backs, making their breakfasts on tortora.
CATTLE FEEDING ON RUSHES, LAKE TITICACA.
Some distance out from the shore a steamboat was lying at anchor. The guide said there were two steamboats on the lake, but the shallowness of the water prevented their coming up to Puno; they were obliged to communicate with the land by means of small boats, which were rowed or pushed along the narrow channel through the bed of reeds. These steamboats were placed on the lake before the construction of the railway; they were brought in pieces on the backs of mules, and put together on the shore. Other steamboats were promised, and it was expected that the railway would lead to a considerable commercial development which might require a dozen boats in the next decade.
Lake Titicaca is about one hundred and twenty miles long by fifty or sixty in breadth, and its greatest measurement is nearly north and south. It stands in an immense basin, roughly estimated to be six hundred miles long by two hundred broad, or three times the area of the State of New York. It receives several large streams, and discharges into Lake Aullagas; the latter lake has not been carefully surveyed, and though our friends made diligent inquiry they could learn very little about its size, or the nature and direction of its outlet. The lake is very deep in places; it never freezes over, but ice forms sometimes in the bays and shallow places.