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Updated: May 24, 2025
We could not at first make out whether it was venison or mutton, but found on inquiry that it was the flesh of a vicuna, which had been shot by the sportsman of the party in the morning. It is an animal resembling the llama, the well-known beast of burden of the ancient Peruvians. Don Jose and his friend sat down to table with us, and Domingos waited.
It seems to be a gift of Nature to the desert, so that even there man may find something on which to subsist. Guapo with his knife had soon cleared off several large pieces of the maguey, and these, fried along with the vicuna meat, enabled the party to make a supper sufficiently palatable.
It was as yet only an hour or so after daybreak for the vicuña hunt had occupied but a very short time and the capture of the condor a still shorter. Don Pablo was anxious to be gone, as he knew he was not beyond the reach of pursuit. A pair of the vicuñas were hastily prepared, and packed upon a llama for use upon their journey. Thus furnished, the party resumed their route.
A voyage to South America must have been made to obtain tapirs, pumas, peccaries, sloths, ant-eaters, armadillos, fourteen each of the llama, alpaca, and vicuna, beside monkeys, birds, and insects innumerable. A vessel nearly as large as "The Great Eastern" must have been employed, or a number of smaller ones, to accommodate the collectors, the animals, and food for a voyage across the Atlantic.
The bolas consist of three balls hence the name of lead or stone, two of them heavier than the third. Each ball is fastened to the end of a stout thong made of twisted sinews of the vicuña itself, and the other ends of the three thongs are joined together.
The llama is distributed over the greater part of the Andes, and the male only is used as a transport animal. The llama is shy, stupid, and quiet, and his head is somewhat like a sheep's. The alpaca does not carry loads, but is kept as a domestic animal for the sake of its meat and wool. The vicuña and guanaco also do not work in the service of man.
The vicuña is the smallest American "camel," yet its long, slender neck, small head, long legs, and small body, from which hangs long, feathery fleece, make it look more like an ostrich than a camel. In the churchyard of Santa Rosa are two or three gnarled trees which have been carefully preserved for centuries as objects of respect and veneration.
Far up the mountains was the land of ice and snow, fierce biting wind, and sleety tempest, with here and there patches of verdure, the pastoral land of the vicuna and llama flocks; but in the intermediate space, balanced, as it were, between the tropical heat and the wintry frosts, on the table-lands half-way up the mountains, was the stronghold of the Peruvian civilisation.
Often I would spend hours in the wild solitudes hunting the vicuna and alpaca, or in some gloomy cañon communing with myself. Within my spirit I could hear an undertone, "Why cast thyself on waters wild, believing that God is gone, that love is dead and Nature spurns her child?" So, from my grief, I arose at length to feel new life returning.
The alpaca, however, requiring better and scarcer forage short, tender grass and plenty of water frequents the most remote and lofty of the mountain pastures, is handled only when the fleece is removed, seldom sees any one except the peaceful shepherds, and is extremely shy of strangers, although not nearly as timid as its distant cousin the vicuña.
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