tick of wood can be procured, and where he is compelled to cook
his meals with the dry ordure of wild cattle.

"If not successful in the chase he is brought to the verge of
starvation, and must have recourse to roots and berries--a few species
of which, such as the tuberous root `maca,' are found growing in these
elevated regions. He is exposed, moreover, to the perils of the
precipice, the creaking `soga' bridge, the slippery path, and the hoarse
rushing torrent--and these among the rugged Cordilleras of the Andes are
no mean dangers. A life of toil, exposure, and peril is that of the
vicuna hunter.

"During my travels in Peru I had resolved to enjoy the sport of hunting
the vicuna. For this purpose I set out from one of the towns of the
Lower Sierra, and climbed up the high region known as the `Puna,' or
sometimes as the `Despoblado' (the uninhabited region).

"I reached at length the edge of a plain to which I had mounted by many
a weary path--up many a dark ravine. I was twelve or fourteen thousand
feet above sea level, and although I had just parted from the land of
the palm-tree and the orange, I was now in a region cold and sterile.
Mountains were before and around me--some bleak and dark, others shining
under a robe of snow, and still others of that greyish hue as if snow
had freshly fallen upon them, but not enough to cover their stony
surface. The plain before me was several miles in circumference. It
was only part of a system of similar levels separated from each other by
spurs of the mountains. By crossing a ridge another comes in view, a
deep cleft leads you into a third, and so on.

"These table plains are too cold for the agriculturist. Only the cereal
barley will grow there, and some of those hardy roots--the natives of an
arctic zone. But they are covered with a sward of grass--the `ycha'
grass, the favourite food of the llamas--and this renders them
serviceable to man. Herds of half-wild cattle may be seen, tended by
their wilder-looking shepherds. Flocks of alpacas, female llamas with
their young, and long-tailed Peruvian sheep, stray over them, and to
some extent relieve their cheerless aspect. The giant vulture--the
condor, wheels above all, or perches on the jutting rock. Here and
there, in some sheltered nook, may be seen the dark mud hut of the
`vaquero' (cattle herd), or the man himself, with his troop of savage
curs following at his heels, and this is all the sign of habitation