Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1907-01-16
LLAMA TRAINS OF BOLIVIA.
Native Animals the Onlv Ones That
Can Perform the Required
Service.

The most picturesque mode Of
transportation in the world is doubt
less that of the llama trains which
one can see from the car windows in
a journey across the Andes. Though
the railway has been completed for
several years the pack trains of burros
still compete with it for the trans
portation of the natural products from
the interior and the carrying back of
merchandise of all sorts from Eng
land, France and Germany. The burro
trail shortens the distance nearly a
hundred miles, for the sure-footed lit
tie animals are able to climb noun
tains that are impossible for railway
trains.
The arrerios in charge of the llama
and burro trains are usually accom-
panied by their entire families. Their
lives are spent in coming and going
across the desert, so it matters not to
them how long time is spent on the
journey. The animals are the capital
of the arrerio and the desert is his
home. His wife helps him to drive
them, and at night, wrapped in their
ponchos, they lie down by the side
of their beasts, though the air is often
so cold that ice forms in the little
streams beside them. They are often
overtaken by snowstorms in the noun
tains, but they do not seem to suffer
from the cold and are rarely known
to perish from it.
The South American bundles all his
blankets about his head and keeps his
feet cool. The North American keeps
his feet warm and exposes his head
and arms. The children who are too
small to walk, sometimes little ones
two or three days of age, ride on the
donkeys when their parents are driv-
ing the train. They are born by the
wayside, like the lambs of the flock,
and there is little more fuss made
with the one than the other. The first
year of their lives are spent in the
pannier on the side of the burro.
where they roll among the cooking
utensils and blankets and surplus
clothing. Sometimes they are carried
in a poncho ON the mothers back.
The pack trains make the journey
from the seaports on the west coast
of South America to the basin living
between the ranges of the Andes in
from 20 to 80 days. All the steam
ers which in former days were seen
on Lake Titicaca were carried piece
by piece on the backs of llamas and
put together on their arrival. It was
the same with the machinery which is
used in the mines. The railways have
changed all this.
The burden which the llama will
carry must not exceed 100 pounds. It
makes no difference Of what his bur-
den consists, he will carry it over
pathways where no other beast of bur-
den could find foothold. But if he
Is overloaded he is quick to resent it,
and no amount of beating or persua-
sion will make him rise to his feet
and continue his journey except the
removal of the excess.
No other animal can endure the
rarefied atmosphere of the heights of
the Andes. Even the burros have Sits
in their nostrils or have. holes punched
through them in order to make it
easier for them to breathe. When a
horse is first brought into this high
altitude blood drips from his ears
and nostrils, and it takes him a long
time to become acclimated. Mules
are more enduring and the burros bet
ter still, but the llama is native there
and thrives accordingly. The keep Of
the llama costs the arrerio nothing,
and he obtains his food as he passes
along over the deserts. Like the
camel, he can live for a long time
without food or water. When the ar
rerlo comes to a good bit of grazing
he lets the pack iinger, sometimes for
an hour or two. or it may be for sew
eral days, for time is no object, and
the welfare of the animals is Of the
greatest Importance.