The Iuka vidette. (Iuka, Miss.) 1894-1912, 1895-03-21
THE LLAMAs BURIAL PLACE.



zles the Naturalist.
The unique position once held by
nuchenia glama in South America
lends peculiar interest to the small
group of animals to which it belongs
Before the Spanish conquest of Peru
the llama was the only hoofed animal
domesticated in the country, and by
consequence filled n very important
place in Peruvian economy. Not only
was it then. AS now, a beast of burden,
but it supplied the place of oxen and
sheep in respect to meat and WOOL in
fact, more general utility" animal
is unknown to man. Naturally, since
the introduction of horses, donkeys
and mules the llama has been much
less used. Science has resolved the
group into four species, all of which
are very much alike. These are the
llama. alpaca, huanaco and the vicuna,
of which only the first two are known
in the domestic state.
The earlier naturalists, guided by the
eye, regarded the llama as a near rela-
tive of the sheep. Cuvier was the first
10 recognize that it pertnined more
nearly to the camels. and ultimately he
rclcgated it to the sub-family of its own
as anchenia The general public dis
tinguish the llama in captivity as the
animal that splits" All. four species
have a habit of discharging ill-smelling
saliva into or at the face of any human
to whose presence they object, and we
can quite imagine that for riding pur-
poses a mount of such Objectionable
manners could not long hold its place
against well-behaved donkey.
The huanaco has one curious in
stinct which naturalists are perforce
Obliged to put aside as useless. We
quote w. II. Hudson's remarks on the
huanaco's dying place in that charm
ing book The Naturalist in La Plata" "
1t is we'll known that at the south
crn extremity of Patagonia the huan-
acos have IL dying place. a spot to
which all individuals inha biting the
surrounding plains repair at the APP
proach of death to deposit their bones
Darwin and Eitzroy first recorded this
strange instinct in their personal mar
ratives, and their observations have
since been fully confirmed by Others.
The best known of these dying or bur-
ial places are on the banks of the San
TIA Cruz and Gallegos rivers, where the
river valleys are covered with dense
primeval thickets of bushes and trees
of stunted growth. There the ground
is covered with the bones of countless
dead generations.
1.-The animals says Darwin, ''in
most eases must have crawled be-
fore dying beneath and among the
bushes" A strange instinct in crea-
ture SO pre-eminently social in its
habits; dweller all its life long ON the
open, barren plateaus and mountain
tides! What a subject for n painter!
The gray wilderness of dwarf thorn
trees, aged and grotesque and seanty
leaved, nourishcd for thousand years
on the bones that whiteu the stony
ground at their roots; the interior lit
family with the rays of the departing
sun, chill and gray and silent and mo-
tionless-7the huanacos' Golgotha. In
the long centuries, stretching back
into dim, immeasurab bic past, so many
of this race have journeyed hither from
the mountain and plain to suffer the
sharp pang of death. that, to the inn
agination, something of it all seems to
have passed into that hushed and
,nournful nature. And now one more,
the last pilgrim, has come, all his little
strength spent in his struggle to pene-
trate the close thicket; looking old and
gaunt and ghostly in the twilight;
with long, ragged hair; staring into
the gloom out of death-dimmed sunken
eyes.
To this account of the animals dying
place and instinct Darwin adds: II do
not at all understand the reason of
this, but l may observe that the
wounded huanacos ut the Santa Cruz
invariably walk toward the river
1t would no doubt be rash to affirm OF
any instinct that it is bsolutely unique,
but, putting aside some doubtful re-
ports about a custom of the Asiatic
elephant, which may have originated
in the account of Sinbad the sailors
discovery of an elephants burial place,
we have no knowledge of an instinct
similar TO that of the huanaco in any
ObliNI
So far as we know, it stands alone
and apart, with nothing in the actions
of other species leading up or suggest
ing any family likeness to it But
what chiefly attracts the mind to it i;
its strangeness. 1t looks, in fact, less
like an instinct of one of the inferior
creatures than the superstitious OBJ
servancc of human beings, who have
knowledge of death and believe in {
continued existence after dissolution
of tribe that in past times had con
ccived the idea that the liberated spir
it is only able to find its way to its flu
ture abode by starting at death from
the ancient dying place of the tribe o.
family and thence moving westward o
skyward or underground, over tn,
well-worn immemorial track invisibl,
TO material eyes. Land and Water.
The Population of Canton.
The ,,,rt1l a tion of the cifU Of Cautou