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 vicuna.  I shall never forget the first time I ever saw some alpacas.  They looked for all the world like the “woolly-dogs” of our toys shops—­woolly along the neck right up to the eyes and woolly along the legs right down to the invisible wheels!  There was something inexpressibly comic about these long-legged animals.  They look like toys on wheels, but actually they can gallop like cows.

The llama, with far less hair on head, neck, and legs, is also amusing, but in a different way.  His expression is haughty and supercilious in the extreme.  He usually looks as though his presence near one is due to circumstances over which he really had no control.  Pride of race and excessive haughtiness lead him to carry his head so high and his neck so stiffly erect that he can be corralled, with others of his kind, by a single rope passed around the necks of the entire group.  Yet he can be bought for ten dollars.

On the pasture lands of Ajochiucha there were many ewes and lambs, both of llamas and alpacas.  Even the shepherds were mostly children, more timid than their charges.  They crouched inconspicuously behind rocks and shrubs, endeavoring to escape our notice.  About five o’clock in the afternoon, on a dry pampa, we found the ruins of one of the largest known Inca storehouses, Chichipampa, an interesting reminder of the days when benevolent despots ruled the Andes and, like the Pharaohs of old, provided against possible famine.  The locality is not occupied, yet near by are populous valleys.

As soon as we left our camp the next morning, we came abruptly to the edge of the Lampa Valley.  This was another of the mile-deep canyons so characteristic of this region.  Our pack mules grunted and groaned as they picked their way down the corkscrew trail.  It overhangs the mud-colored Indian town of Colta, a rather scattered collection of a hundred or more huts.  Here again, as in the Cotahuasi Valley, are hundreds of ancient terraces, extending for thousands of feet up the sides of the canyon.  Many of them were badly out of repair, but those near Colta were still being used for raising crops of corn, potatoes, and barley.  The uncultivated spots were covered with cacti, thorn bushes, and the gnarled, stunted trees of a semi-arid region.  In the town itself were half a dozen specimens of the Australian eucalyptus, that agreeable and extraordinarily successful colonist which one encounters not only in the heart of Peru, but in the Andes of Colombia and the new forest preserves of California and the Hawaiian Islands.