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Updated: May 25, 2025
But the richest store of wool was obtained, not from these domesticated animals, but from the two other species, the huanacos and the vicunas, which roamed in native freedom over the frozen ranges of the Cordilleras; where not unfrequently they might be seen scaling the snow- covered peaks which no living thing inhabits save the condor, the huge bird of the Andes, whose broad pinions bear him up in the atmosphere to the height of more than twenty thousand feet above the level of the sea.5 In these rugged pastures, "the flock without a fold" finds sufficient sustenance in the ychu, a species of grass which is found scattered all along the great ridge of the Cordilleras, from the equator to the southern limits of Patagonia.
Not unfrequently they may be seen scaling the snow-covered peaks to a height which no other living thing save the condor can reach. They find sustenance in the ychu, a species of grass which grows all along the great ridge of the Cordilleras, from the equator to the southern limits of Patagonia. The vicunas are very beautiful and graceful creatures, with the habits of antelopes.
The scene was one of almost indescribable but dreary grandeur, titanic peaks crowned with snow and ice towering high on every hand, divided by gorges of immeasurable depth, their sides for the most part shaggy with pine forests, and never a sign of human habitation to be seen, nor indeed any sign of life in any form, save where, here and there, a small moving blotch on the distant landscape indicated the presence of a flock of huanacos or vicunas; but even these were but few, for the travellers had not yet reached the lofty frozen wastes where alone the ychu grass is found, which is therefore the favoured habitat of those animals.
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