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A line of cliff near the mouth of the Santa Cruz is frequented by these birds, and about eighty miles up the river, where the sides of the valley are formed by steep basaltic precipices, the condor reappears. From these facts it seems that the condors require perpendicular cliffs.
When an animal is killed in the country, it is well known that the condors, like other carrion-vultures, soon gain intelligence of it, and congregate in an inexplicable manner. In most cases it must not be overlooked, that the birds have discovered their prey, and have picked the skeleton clean, before the flesh is in the least degree tainted.
This feeble civilization then received a more cruel shock than that which had been dealt it by the storming columns of the conquistadors. The horse transformed the Utes, Apaches, Comanches, and Navajos from snapping-turtles into condors. Thenceforward, instead of crawling in slow and feeble bands to tease the dense populations of the pueblos, they could come like a tornado, and come in a swarm.
The absence of even a spear of grass bespoke the unfruitfulness of the soil, while large condors and galanasas hovered overhead, waiting for man or mule to fall, overcome by the heat; then they would alight with exultant cries to a horrible feast. The water of the caravan was rapidly exhausted and they suffered the pangs of thirst.
I began to fear that I was too late to save you; and when following up the track of your footsteps, I saw that a number of the Spanish cavalry had escaped, and had gone towards yonder clump of trees. Several have fallen in the way, as the wings of the condors I could see flapping above the ground, one beyond the other, told me plainly. And now, Senores, it is time to mount and proceed.
Man, beautiful Man in the centre, all the tree-animals on branches around him, the deeps drained off at his feet, many monsters visible or intimated, the air alive with wings finches up to condors. That picture sank deep, Skag, so deep that in absent-minded moments I half expected to find India like that " There were no better hours of life, than these when Cadman Sahib let himself speak.
There were photographs of themselves collectively and individually in many a place now far distant; views of the machine at rest, and of parts of it among the clouds and above them; two views of the fight with the condors; several of Grandpa in various amusing positions; many pictures of foreign places and of natives; illustrations showing the battle with the devil-fish; storms as seen from below, and storms as seen below when flying above them.
The vaquero, however, had a good many "dodges," and after the ruse he had just practised upon the vicunas, Leon suspected he would employ some similar artifice with the condors. Leon was right. It was by a stratagem the bird was to be taken. The vaquero laid hold of a long rope, and lifting the bull's hide upon his shoulders, asked Guapo to follow him with the two horses.
Carl Hagenbeck wrote me only three months ago that "the condors of the Andes are all being exterminated for their feathers, and these birds are now very difficult to obtain." The egret and heron plumes, known under the trade name of "osprey, etc., feathers," form by far the most important item in each feather sale. There are fifteen grades!
They had bald, evil-looking heads and huge, hooked beaks. "They are South American condors, the largest birds in existence," cried Harry, as the monstrous fowls, of which fully a hundred were now circling about the invaders of their realm, seemed to grow bolder and closed in about the aeroplane. "They mean to attack us," cried Frank, suddenly.
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